CREDIT  OF  THE  GOVERNMENT. 


SPEECH 


HON.  D.  W.  VOORHEES, 

OF  INDIANA, 

IN  THK'  -» 

Senate  op  the  United  States, 


JANUARY  15,  1878. 


t 


W  ASHIN  G-TON. 


h  f A  * 


3SU.nl 

UUJt 

O-r  y  . 

S  r  E  E  0  H 

OF 

H  UN.  D  .  W  .  V  0  0  K  HEES. 


The  resolution  submitted  by  Mr.  Voori-iees  on  the  13tli  of  Decem¬ 
ber,  1877,  was  read. 

Mr.  VOORHEES  said : 

Mr.  President:  On  the  13th  of  December  I  had  the  honor  to  in¬ 
troduce  in  this  body  the  following  resolution : 

Resolved ,  That  it  is  of  the  highest  importance  that  the  financial  credit  of  the 
Government  be  maintained,  anil,  in  order  to  do  so,  the  Government  itself,  in  all 
its  departments',  should  in  good  faith  keep  all  its  contracts  and  obligations  entered 
into  with  its  own  citizens. 

And  in  pursuance  of  a  notice  then  given  I  now  call  it  up  for  the 
purpose  of  discussing  the  subject  to  which  it  relates. 

The  agitation  of  the  question  of  finance  has  continued  without  a 
moment’s  intermission  from  the  commencement  of  our  present  sys¬ 
tem  until  this  hour.  Nor  is  it  likely  to  cease  for  many  years  to 
come.  In  fact  it  will  never  cease  until  the  people  are  satisfied  that 
our  yast  debt  is  in  process  of  extinction  upon  principles  of  justice  to 
tax-paying  labor,  or  until,  on  the  other  hand,  they  are  subjugated 
into  silent  submission  and  the  Government  itself  becomes  changed 
in  spirit  and  form  into  a  moneyed  aristocracy.  It  may  be  that  this 
latter  alternative  is  to  overtake  us.  There  are  dark  and  plentiful 
omens  in  our  recent  history  indicating  such  a  conclusion,  and  there 
is  a  numerous  and  powerful  class  in  our  midst  who  believe,  as  Alex¬ 
ander  Hamilton  declared,  that  the  British  government,  on  this  as 
well  as  on  other  points,  is  the  best  ever  devised  by  the  wisdom  of 
man.  Those  entertaining  this  opinion  have  thus  far  triumphed  in 
the  financial  legislation  of  the  United  States  and  the  time  has  now 
arrived  when  their  victories  must  be  reversed  or  soon  this  Govern¬ 
ment  will  cease  to  be  republican  and  the  people  no  longer  be  free. 

The  policy  of  this  victorious  interest  in  this  country,  as  in  all  others, 
has  been  vigilant  for  opportunities  of  greed  and  gain,  and  aggres¬ 
sive  in  appropriating  them  to  its  own  advantage.  In  its  tenacious 
pursuit  of  this  policy  it  has  during  the  last  sixteen  years  pressed  its 
cruel  and  unjust  demands  upon  the  American  people  in  a  variety  of 
shapes.  Just  now  it  assumes  a  manner  swollen  with  arrogance, 
haughty,  defiant,  and  filled  with  insolence  toward  all  opponents. 
Those  who  are  ranged  on  the  side  of  grasping  wealth  affect  a  high 
disdain  for  such  as  choose  to  remember  that  labor  lias  rights  which 
this  Government  is  called  upon  to  protect.  There  seems  to  be  an  im¬ 
mense  sneer  on  the  face  of  sordid,  inactive  capital,  as  if  its  pretensions 
were  beyond  the  criticism  of  ordinary  mortals.  Its  advocates  outside 
of  Congress  do  not  condescend,  as  a  general  thing,  to  argument  at  ail. 


4 


Denunciation  is  now  their  principal  weapon.  There  is  no  epithet  how¬ 
ever  base,  no  insinuation  however  infamous  that  is  not  of  daily  use 
against  all  who  dare  to  differ  in  opinion  with  them.  A  curious  spectacle 
is  presented  on  this  subject  by  a  large  portion  of  the  eastern  press,  here 
and  there  aided  by  a  newspaper  in  the  West.  Their  columns  reek  from 
day  to  day  with  clamorous  abuse  of  all  who  venture  to  believe  as  I  do 
that,  to  a  great  extent,  our  whole  financial  system  is  an  organized  crime 
against  the  laboring,  tax-paying  men  and  women  of  the  United  States. 
Those  who  think  as  I  do  that  a  great  work  of  financial  reform  is 
demanded  in  order  to  secure  the  people  from  slavery  in  fact,  if  not 
in  name,  are  denounced  in  the  same  spirit,  and  in  the  exact  language 
with  which  every  old  criminal  abuse  in  government,  throughout  all 
history,  has  sought  to  paralyze  the  work  of  reformation  and  beat 
back  the  tide  of  human  progress.  Wherever  in  the  annals  of  the 
human  race  unholy  avarice  has  built  its  strongholds  and  privileged 
classes  have  intrenched  themselves ;  wherever  superstition  has  held 
the  human  mind  in  bondage  for  the  benefit  of  spiritual  tyrants ; 
wherever  man  in  any  way  has  had  unlawful  mastery  over  his  fellow- 
man  and  gathered  in  what  belonged  to  another,  there  the  same  cry 
which  we  now  hear  has  always  been  raised  against  any  intrusion  or 
disturbance  of  established  and  venerable  iniquity.  Nor  does  the 
parallel  stop  here.  The  great  plea  of  the  present  hour  for  the  con¬ 
tinuation  of  wrong  and  injustice  is  that  good  faith  requires  it.  Those 
who,  finding  a  monstrous  evil  imbedded  in  the  laws  of  their  country, 
wish  to  eradicate  it  by  peaceful  legislation  are  at  once  and  with  the 
utmost  fury  assaulted  as  violators  of  the  public  faith,  enemies  of  the 
national  honor,  and  worse  if  possible  than  common  swindlers.  It 
matters  not  how  deep  and  burning  the  outrage  may  be  or  how  fraud¬ 
ulently  it  may  have  crept  into  our  statutes,  good  faith,  in  the  esti¬ 
mation  of  those  who  profit  by  the  outrage,  requires  it  to  remain  there 
forever,  though  it  should  aid  day  by  day  the  ghastly  work  of  ruin 
that  now  pervades  the  laud.  When  the  peasantry  of  France,  in  1789, 
worn  out  with  the  extortions  of  five  centuries,  arose  against  king, 
priests,  and  nobles,  they  were  told  that  they  were  breaking  the  faith 
of  the  nation  which  had  been  pledged  a  thousand  times  for  their 
silent  submission  to  any  wrong,  in  person  or  property,  however  horri¬ 
ble  or  indescribable.  Whenever  the  starving  people  of  Ireland,  in 
the  dreary  centuries  of  the  past,  have  grown  uneasy  in  their  bondage 
and  struggled  against  their  fetters,  they  have  been  fiercely  reminded 
that  the  good  faith  of  Eugland  is  solemnly. pledged  to  maintain  ex¬ 
isting  laws  and  perpetual  abuses. 

Sir,  this  plea,  so  loud  now  in  our  ears,  has  been  invoked  in  behalf 
of  every  wickedness  that  ever  cursed  the  world.  The  usurper  in¬ 
vokes  it  to  protect  the  throne  ho  has  stolen,  as  soon  as  he  is  seated. 
The  tyrant  invokes  it  to  shelter  his  prerogative,  and  his  nobility  in 
turn  invoke  it  in  order  to  live  in  ease  and  splendor  oil’  the  labor  of 
others.  It  is  my  purpose  on  this  occasion,  however,  to  show  what 
the  obligations  of  good  faith  require  of  us  on  the  great  question  of 
our  finances,  and  to  arraign  those  who  have  systematically  broken  it 
whenever  their  interest  prompted  them  to  do  so.  It  is  my  purpose 
also  to  show  that  while  it  is  of  the  highest  importance  to  maintain 
our  financial  credit,  it  can  only  be  done  by  the  Government  keeping 
all  its  contracts  and  obligations  with  its  own  citizens.  This  issue  has 
been  presented  of  late  iu  a  manner  so  persistent  and  offensive,  espe¬ 
cially  to  western  men  and  western  interests,  that  it  shall  now  be  met 
as  far  as  my  humble  capacity  enables  me  to  meet  it. 

Sir,  I  appeal  to  the  history  of  our  financial  legislation.  I  challenge 


5 


its  solemn  records  for  judgment  against  the  actual  repudiators  of 
national  faith  and  honor.  Its  pages  contain  the  facts,  the  immutable 
facts,  from  which  the  future  historian  will  judge  this  question.  Let 
us  candidly  review  them.  The  act  of  February  25, 1862,  is  the  begin¬ 
ning  of  our  bonded  debt.  The  precious  metals  were  found  to  be  un¬ 
equal  to  the  emergency  of  war.  Specie  payments  were  abandoned  as 
soon  as  the  hour  of  trial  came,  and  gold  and  silver  cowered  in  the 
rear,  while  the  legal- tender  dollar  went  to  the  front  with  the  dag 
and  staid  there.  I  was  among  those  who  doubted  our  right  to  issue 
it,  but  experience  has  shown  it  the  best  money,  all  things  considered, 
that  ever  circulated  on  American  soil.  By  this  act  of  February,  1862, 
and  by  similar  legislation  at  subsequent  periods,  every  bond  issued 
by  the  Government  which  did  not  on  its  face  stipulate  for  payment 
in  coin  was  made  payable  by  the  express  words  of  law  in  legal- tender 
notes.  It  was  plainly  written  in  the  statute  that  these  notes,  now 
known  as  greenbacks,  ‘‘shall  be  receivable  in  payment  of  all  taxes, 
internal  duties,  excise,  debts,  and  demands  of  every  kind  due  to  the 
United  States,  except  duties  on  imports ;  and  of  all  claims  and  de¬ 
mands  against  the  United  States  of  every  kind  whatever,  except  for 
interest  upon  bonds  and  notes,  which  shall  be  paid  in  coin;  and  shall 
also  be  lawful  money  and  a  legal  tender  in  payment  of  all  debts, 
public  and  private,  within  the  United  States,  except  duties  on  im¬ 
ports  and  interest  as  aforesaid.” 

This  simple,  explicit,  and  at  the  same  time  comprehensive  enact¬ 
ment  guaranteed  to  the  American  people  the  right  to  pay  three-fourths 
of  their  national  debt  in  national  currency.  It  was  the  law  of  the 
contract  when  all  the  5.20  bonds,  amounting  to  over  fifteen  hundred 
millions,  were  purchased  from  the  Government  by  the  bondholders, 
and  paid  for  in  this  currency  at  par,  when  it  was  quoted  at  from  40 
to  60  per  cent,  below  par  in  coin.  Every  one  understood  the  law  to 
be  as  I  have  stated  it  at  the  time  of  its  passage.  In  fact  the  great 
struggle  then  was  whether  even  the  interest  on  the  bonds  I  have  men¬ 
tioned  should  be  paid  in  coin.  The  act  of  February  25,  1862,  first 
passed  the  House  without  any  provision  at  all  for  the  coin  payment 
of  interest.  That  feature  of  the  law  was  attached  here  in  the  Senate 
as  an  amendment,  and  when  the  act,  thus  amended,  was  returned  to 
the  House  a  violent  conflict  at  once  arose.  An  examination  of  the 
Congressional  Globe  for  the  second  session  of  the  Thirty-seventh  Con¬ 
gress,  at  pages  821  and  900,  will  show  that  both  Mr.  Spaulding,  of  New 
York,  and  Mr.  Stevens,  of  Pennsylvania,  the  leading  members  of  the 
Committee  of  Ways  and  Means,  and  one  its  chairman,  united  in  de¬ 
nouncing  the  Senate  amendment  in  the  bitterest  and  severest  terms. 
They  contended  in  stern  and  determined  language  that  even  the  pay¬ 
ment  of  interest  in  coin  was  an  odious  and  unjust  discrimination  in 
favor  of  the  bondholder  and  against  the  soldier,  the  sailor,  and  the 
citizen,  who  were  compelled  to  receive  the  legal-tender  currency, 
greatly  depreciated  by  this  very  discrimination. 

No  one  by  a  single  word  in  that  entire  debate  made  the  slightest 
pretense  or  intimation  that  the  principal  of  the  bonds  was  payable 
in  coin.  During  the  full  term  of  seven  eventful  years  that  followed 
there  is  not  a  platform  of  either  political  party  in  any  State  in  the 
Union  which  makes  such  an  assertion.  No  claim  for  such  a  construc¬ 
tion  of  the  law  in  behalf  of  the  bondholder  ever  fell  from  the  lips 
of  a  leading  member  of  the  party  in  power  during  the  same  length 
of  time  in  either  branch  of  Congress,  or  anywhere  else,  as  far  as  the 
public  is  advised.  On  the  contrary  in  many  States,  and  notably  in 
Ohio,  the  home  of  the  President  and  his  Secretary  of  the  Treasury, 


() 


the  dominant  party  in  its  State  convention  in  1868  expressed  its  de¬ 
liberate  “  conviction  that  according  to  the  laws  under  which  the  5.20 
bonds  were  issued  said  bonds  should  be  paid  in  the  currency  of  the 
country  which  may  be  legal  tenders  when  the  Government  shall  be 
prepared  to  redeem  such  bonds.”  On  this  doctrine  the  present  Chief 
Magistrate  and  his  Secretary  took  their  stand  only  nine  years  ago  and 
told  the  people  that  the  doctrine  was  true.  Not  only  so,  but  Secre¬ 
tary  Sherman,  who  nowr  in  his  recent  report  warns  us  against  repu¬ 
diation,  then  gave  in  a  letter  dated  March  20,  1868,  and  widely  pub¬ 
lished  his  idea  of  what  constituted  a  repudiator.  Speaking  on  this 
subject,  he  says : 

United  States  Senate  Chamber, 

Washington,  March  30,  18G8. 

Dear  Sir  :  I  was  glad  to  receive  your  letter.  My  personal  interests  are  the  same 
as  yours,  but,  like  you,  I  do  not  intend  to  be  influenced  by  them.  My  construction 
of  the  law  is  the  result  of  careful  examination,  and  I  feel  quite  sure  an  impartial 
court  would  confirm  it  if  the  case  should  be  tried  before  a  court.  I  send  you  my 
views,  as  fully  stated  in  a  speech.  Your  idea  that  we  propose  to  repudiate  or  vio¬ 
late  a  promise  when  we  offer  to  redeem  the  “principal  ”  in  leiral-tenders  is  errone¬ 
ous.  I  think  the  bondholder  violates  his  promise  when  he  refuses  to  take  the  same 
kind  of  money  he  paid  for  the  bonds.  If  the  case  is  to  be  tested  by  the  law  I  am 
right,  if  it  is  to  be  tested  by  Jay  Cooke’s  advertisements.  I  am  wrong.  I  hate  re¬ 
pudiation  or  anything  like  it,  but  we  ought  not  to  be  deterred  from  what  is  right 
for  fear  of  undeserved  epithets.  If  under  the  law  as  it  stands  the  holders  of  five- 
twenties  can  only  be  paid  in  gold,  the  bondholder  can  demand  only  the  kind  of 
money  he  paid,  then  he  is  a  repudiator  and  extortioner  to  demand  money  more 
valuable  than  he  gave. 

Truly  yours, 

JOHX  SHE  UMAX. 

When  it  is  remembered  that  the  bondholder  never  paid  a  dollar 
in  coin  for  a  bond  of  any  description,  but  purchased  them  all  with 
Government  currency,  which  the  Government  itself  had  depreciated 
by  refusing  to  take  it  for  customs  dues  and  interest,  the  full  mean¬ 
ing  of  this  letter  becomes  very  plain  and  very  forcible.  It  is  not 
the  offspring  of  impulse  or  inexperience.  Its  author  was  then  chair¬ 
man  of  the  Finance  Committee  of  this  body,  and  he  wrote,  as  he 
says,  after  “  careful  examination.”  By  the  light  which  he  here 
throws  upon  the  subject  we  may  see  the  exact  beginning  of  repu¬ 
diation  and  behold  the  furtive  and  ravenous  movements  of  the  actual 
repudiators  as  they  hurry  up  and  down  the  precincts  of  legislation 
during  the  last  nine  years  of  our  history.  By  its  light,  too,  wre  behold 
the  present  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  judged  by  his  own  words,  as 
the  chief  of  repudiators,  foremost  among  the  violators  of  contracts, 
and  a  leader  among  those  who  have  in  no  instance  kept  the  good 
faith  of  the  Government  with  its  own  people  a  moment  after  they 
found  that  bad  faith  would  bring  them  richer  gains.  In  less  than 
ten  months  after  this  letter  was  written,  and  after  the  enunciation 
of  the  Ohio  platform,  Hon.  John  Sherman,  then  a  Senator,  advo¬ 
cated  and  procured  the  passage  of  the  act  of  March,  1889,  for  the 
payment  of  all  the  bonds  in  coin  which  he  had  declared  payable  in 
currency,  thereby  establishing  an  open  repudiation  of  a  solemn  and 
binding  contract  and  fastening  an  extortion  of  not  less  than  $500,- 
000,000  on  the  staggering  industries  of  the  country  as  the  speculative 
profits  of  the  operation.  In  the  whole  financial  history  of  the  civil¬ 
ized  world  no  parallel  can  be  found  to  this  audacious  deed  of  broken 
faith,  deliberate  treachery  to  the  people,  and  national  dishonesty. 
It  stands  out  by  itself,  towering  high  above  all  common  frauds 
and  dwarfing  them  in  comparison  with  its  own  vast  proportions.  It 
Avill  bear  the  names  of  those  who  enacted  it  to  distant  generations 
amidst  the  groans,  the  curses,  and  the  lamentations  of  those  who 


i 


toil  on  the  land,  and  on  the  sea  ;  and  more  deeply  engraven  than  any 
other  name  will  be  forever  found  that  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury 
as  the  author  of  what  he  himself  said  constituted  the  twofold  crime 
of  repudiation  and  extortion.  Do  I  state  the  case  too  strongly? 
Does  any  Senator  think  that  I  am  not  justified  in  the  language  I 
use  or  in  the  conclusion  I  state  ?  If  so,  I  pray  him  to  recall  the 
utterances  of  my  lamented  and  distinguished  predecessor  in  this 
body.  When  this  monstrous  act  of  repudiation  was  on  its  passage 
here  in  March,  1869,  Senator  Morton  pointed  out  in  the  plainest  and 
most  explicit  manner  four  distinct  acts  of  Congress  under  which  the 
people  had  acquired  a  vested  right  to  pay  the  5.20  bonds  in  legal- 
tender  notes,  and  which  were  to  be  broken  and  set  aside  by  the 
measure  then  under  discussion.  Among  other  things  he  said  : 

And  now  I  propound  tlie  question.  It  is  either  intended  by  this  bill  to  make  a 
new  contract  or  it  is  not.  If  it  is  intended  to  make  a  new  contract,  I  protest 
against  it.  We  should  do  foul  injustice  to  the  Government  and  the  people  of  the 
United  States  after  we  have  sold  these  bonds  on  an  average  for  not  more  than 
sixty  cenl  s  on  the  dollar  now  to  make  a  new  contract  for  the  benefit  of  the  holders. 

Again  he  says: 

It  gives  to  those  laws  a  construction  that  I  do  not  believe  in  and  that  I  have 
shown  is  contradicted  by  at  least  four  acts  of  Congress. 

And  again  Senator  Morton  exclaimed,  with  that  power  of  state¬ 
ment  which  always  so  greatly  characterized  him  : 

Sir,  it  is  understood,  I  believe,  that  the  passage  of  a  bill  of  this  kind  would  have 
the  effect  in  Europe,  where  our  financial  questions  are  not  well  understood,  to  in¬ 
crease  the  demand,  and  that  will  enable  the  great  operators  to  sell  the  bonds  they 
have  on  hand  at  a  profit.  It  is  in  the  nature  of  a  broker’s'operation.  It  is  a  bull 
movement  intended  to  put  up  the  price  of  bonds  for  the  interest  of  parties  deal¬ 
ing  in  them.  This  great  interest  is  thundering  at  the  doors  of  Congress,  and  has 
for  many  months  and  by  every  means  been  attempting  to  drive  us  into  legislation 
for  the  purpose  of  making  money  for  the  great  operators.  That  is  what  it  means 
and  nothing  else. 

These  are  words  of  intense  and  overwhelming  force.  Where  in 
the  whole  range  of  debate  can  be  found  a  more  revolting  picture  of 
bad  faith  inspired  by  base  cupidity  than  is  here  portrayed  by  the 
greatest  party  leader  perhaps  ever  known  in  the  American  Congress  ? 
He  has  passed  away,  his  voice  is  silent,  and  he  rests  after  life’s  fitful 
fever,  but  this  accusation  hurled  against  criminal  wrong-doing  sur¬ 
vives,  and  will  continue  to  survive  as  long  as  it  remains  to  be  deter¬ 
mined  who  have  repudiated  the  sacred  obligations  and  the  plighted 
faith  of  the  American  Republic.  In  far  distant  times  generations 
now  unborn  while  examining  the  sources  of  the  burdens  that  have 
descended  to  them  will  read  the  charge  made  in  this  presence  by 
the  late  Senator  from  Indiana,  that  a  combination  of  stock-jobbers, 
as  destitute  of  conscience  as  pirates  and  inspired  alone  by  greed  for 
money,  successfully  thundered  at  these  doors  and  finally  drove  this 
Government  into  the  most  stupendous  act  of  bad  faith  and  legalized 
robbery  ever  practiced  upon  any  peojde  since  the  dawn  of  history. 
Five  hundred  millions  made  by  the  great  operators  and  five  hun¬ 
dred  millions  lost  to  the  plowman  and  the  mechanic  who  have  it  all 
to  pay ! 

And  yet  the  authors,  the  instigators,  the  abettors  of  this  crime,  and 
the  participators  in  its  proceeds,  fill  the  air  with  railing  on  the  sub¬ 
ject  of  repudiation,  and  point  their  fingers,  stained  with  plunder,  at 
honest  men,  as  repudiators,  because  they  believe  that  a  contract  for 
the  benefit  of  the  people  should  beheld  as  sacred  as  one  for  the  bene¬ 
fit  of  the  bondholder.  Sir,  forbearance  on  this  point  has  ceased  to  be 
a  virtue.  Those  who  have  at  all  times  labored  to  keep  the  faith  of 


8 


the  Government  with  its  citizens,  and  its  creditors  alike,  cannot  sub¬ 
mit  any  longer  to  insult  added  to  injury,  to  wholesale  calumny  added 
to  national  plunder.  In  some  countries  the  habit  prevails  of  building 
a  cairn,  a  pile  of  stones,  to  mark  the  spot  where  some  tragic  event  has 
happened.  So  let  American  tax-payers,  whenever  the  act  of  March, 
1869,  is  cited,  each  cast  a  stone  upon  it,  to  mark  the  place  in  Amer¬ 
ican  history  where  repudiation  began,  and  where  the  rights  of  the  peo¬ 
ple  were  mercilessly  and  treacherously  slaughtered. 

The  next  step  in  the  systematic  violation  of  its  obligations  to  its 
own  citizens  by  the  American  Government  was  taken  in  the  enact¬ 
ment  of  the  law  of  July  14,  1870,  known  as  the  act  for  refunding  the 
national  debt.  The  motive  which  prompted  this  legislation  has 
never  yet  been  fully  exposed.  It  has  always  been  held  up  in  the 
innocent  guise  of  an  attempt  to  reduce  the  rate  of  interest.  It  was 
in  fact,  however,  the  offspring  of  an  apprehension  remaining  in  cer¬ 
tain  minds  even  after  the  act  of  March,  1869,  that  the  work  of  repu¬ 
diating  the  contract  for  the  payment  of  the  5.20  bonds  might  not 
be  quite  complete  and  final.  These  bonds  were  outstanding,  and 
although  the  law  of  their  payment  had  just  been  repealed,  yet  their 
holders  feared  that  the  people  might  sooner  or  later  in  turn  repeal 
the  faithless  act  of  March,  1869,  and  declare  again  for  the  payment 
of  these  original  bonds  according  to  the  original  contract. 

Therefore  this  act  of  July  14,  1870,  called  the  refunding  act,  was 
brought  in  as  supplemental  to  that  of  March,  1869,  and  in  aid  of  its 
false  assertion  that  our  whole  bonded  debt  was  payable  in  coin.  By 
a  sort  of  moral  forgery  on  the  American  people  the  refunding  act 
provides  for  the  issue  of  new  bonds  to  the  amount  of  $1,500,000,000, 
with  an  agreement  for  coin  payment  written  on  their  face ;  and  then 
further  provides  that  these  new  coin  bonds  shall  be  substituted  for 
the  original  5.20  bonds,  one  in  exchange  for  the  other,  dollar  for  dol¬ 
lar.  Avarice  in  the  ordinary  affairs  of  life  has  often  tempted  the 
holder  of  a  deed,  a  will,  a  bond,  or  other  obligation  for  money  or 
property  to  obtain  a  false  construction,  if  possible,  or  even  to  change 
the  terms  of  the  instrument  in  order  to  enhance  its  value.  Here  both 
these  objects  have  been  obtained  by  the  money  power ;  first  a  false 
construction  of  the  contract,  and  next  a  direct  change  of  its  most 
vital  terms.  It  is  true  that  a  reduction  of  the  rate  of  interest  on  the 
new  coin  bonds  is  provided  for  in  the  act  of  July  14,  1870  ;  two  hun¬ 
dred  millions  of  these  bonds  to  bear  5  per  cent.,  three  hundred  mill¬ 
ions  to  bear  4-J  per  cent.,  and  a  thousand  millions  to  bear  4  per  cent. 
This  reduction  in  the  rate  of  interest  has,  at  first,  the  appearance 
of  a  concession  to  the  people,  but  a  moment’s  calculation  will  show 
the  amount  thus  saved  utterly  trilling  in  comparison  with  the  enor¬ 
mous  loss  they  suffer  by  the  whole  transaction.  Nor  is  it  to  be  sup¬ 
posed  that  the  holders  of  the  5.20  6  per  cent,  bonds  would  surren¬ 
der  them  voluntarily  in  exchange  for  bonds  of  a  less  rate  of  interest, 
unless  they  knew'  they  were  getting  bonds  of  higher  value  and  were 
to  reap  substantial  advantages  by  the  operation.  To  draw  a  differ¬ 
ent  conclusion  would  be  to  reverse  the  well-ascertained  laws  of  hu¬ 
man  nature.  The  archives  of  history  may  be  ransacked  in  vain  to 
find  a  single  instance  where  a  moneyed  investment  relinquished  with¬ 
out  compulsion  a  superior  for  an  inferior  security.  Such  a  thing  was 
never  known  and  never  will  be. 

When,  however,  this  elaborate  scheme  for  the  destruction  of  the 
rights  of  the  people  in  regard  to  the  payment  of  the  5.20  bonds  was 
supposed  to  be  finished  ;  when  the  gateways  of  justice,  of  law,  and 
of  public  morality  had  all  been  closed,  and  double-barred,  and  bolted 


against  tlie  taxpayers  by  the  repudiating  acts  of  March,  1869,  and  of 
July,  1870,  did  the  practice  of  had  faith  on  the  part  of  the  Govern¬ 
ment  toward  its  own  citizens  stop  even  then?  A  finality  appeared 
to  have  been  attained.  Proclamation  was  made  in  every  quarter 
that  a  permanent  settlement  had  been  reached  of  the  manner  in 
w  hich  every  dollar  of  our  national  debt  should  be  paid.  We  were 
constantly  reminded  from  that  day  forward  that  no  law-abiding,  hon¬ 
orable  citizen  would  ever  again  seek  to  reopen  or  agitate  the  ques¬ 
tion.  The  bondholders  were  for  the  time  being  content,  but  they 
did  not  remain  so  a  moment  longer  than  a  new  opportunity  presented 
itself  for  another  encroachment  upon  the  heavily  taxed  industries  of 
the  country.  By  both  the  laws  of  March,  1869,  and  July,  1870,  framed 
in  their  interest  and  under  their  dictation,  it  is  so  plainly  written 
that  the  bonds  then  outstanding  and  afterward  to  be  issued  were 
payable  in  coin — not  in  gold  alone,  nor  in  silver  alone,  but  in  coin — 
that  it  is  impossible  to  construct  an  argument  against  the  proposition. 

Indeed,  it  is  almost  equally  difficult  to  make  an  argument  in  its 
favor,  for  a  truth  that  is  self-evident  does  not  admit  the  ordinary 
methods  of  reason  in  its  support.  In  the  first  section  of  the  act  of 
July  14,  1870,  the  bonds  therein  authorized  are  made  “redeemable  in 
coin  of  the  present  standard  value.”  What  is  there  here  for  con¬ 
struction  ?  What  word  here  taken  from  the  law  can  the  keenest 
casuist  construe  into  even  a  doubtful  meaning  ?  We  all  know  what 
the  term  coin  means  in  connection  with  the  use  of  the  precious  met¬ 
als  in  the  trade  and  commerce  of  the  world.  Even,  however,  if  we 
did  not,  and  we  desired  to  seek  a  still  plainer  and  more  explicit 
guarantee,  we  have  only  to  turn  to  the  act  of  March,  1869.  It  de¬ 
clares  its  object  in  the  following  language  : 

That  in  order  to  remove  any  doubt  as  to  tlie  purpose  of  the  Government  to  dis¬ 
charge  all  its  just  obligations  to  the  public  creditors  and  to  settle  conflicting  ques¬ 
tions  and  interpretations  of  the  laws,  by  virtue  of  which  such  obligations  have  been 
contracted,  it  is  hereby  provided  and  declared  that  the  faith  of  the  United  States 
is  solemnly  pledged  to  the  payment,  in  coin  or  its  equivalent,  of  all  the  obligations 
of  the  United  States  not  bearing  interest,  known  as  United  States  notes,  and  of  all 
the  interest-bearing  obligations  of  tlie  United  States,  except  in  cases  where  the 
law  authorizing  the  issue  of  any  such  obligation  has  expressly  provided  that  the 
same  be  paid  in  lawful  money  or  other  currency  than  gold  and  silver. 

False  and  perfidious  as  this  law  is  known  to  be,  yet  it  has  at  least 
one  merit.  It  is  absolutely  clear  and  unambiguous.  If  human  lan¬ 
guage  can  be  made  to  convey  an  unequivocal  meaning,  then  this  law 
pledged  the  faith  of  the  Government  to  the  people,  and  to  the  world, 
for  the  payment  of  the  national  debt  in  “  gold  and  silver.”  It  is  a 
rule  of  court,  however,  in  finding  the  true  meaning  of  a  law  under 
consideration,  to  resort,  if  necessary,  to  the  opinions  of  those  by 
whom  it  was  enacted.  If  we  do  so  in  the  x>resent  instance  we  are 
amply  rewarded  by  rich  discoveries.  William  Pitt  Fessenden,  then 
a  Senator  from  Maine,  and  who  also  served  as  Secretary  of  the  Treas-  ( 
ury,  used  on  this  floor  the  following  language  : 

Sir,  I  meant  what  I  said,  and  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  meant  what  it 
said,  that  it  would  pay  so  many  dollars.  What  was  a  dollar  ?  A  dollar  was  de 
fined  by  statute.  It  was  gold  or  silver  coin. 

Senator  Morton,  when  pleading  here  for  the  payment  of  the  bonds 
according  to  the  original  contract  made  the  following  statement : 

When  you  return  to  specie  payments  you  have  nothing  to  pay  any  o  your  bonds 
with  but  gold  or  its  equivalent,  and  therefore  the  exception  here  iii  favor  of  bonds 
payable  expressly  in  currency  is  utterly  worthless,  because  we  shall  have  nothing 
then  but  gold  anii  silver  with  which  to  pay  these  bonds 

But  the  evidence  on  this  point  would  not  be  complete  if  I  did  not 
call  Senator  Sherman,  now  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  to  refute  not 


10 


only  all  the  present  enemies  of  silver  as  a  coin  of  legal  tender,  but 
especially  to  refute  and  confound,  as  usual, his  own  subsequent  views. 
In  his  recent  report  on  the  state  of  the  finances,  now  on  our  tables, 
he  says : 

If  the  market  value  of  the  silver  in  the  new  coin  is  less  than  the  gold  dollar  a 
forced  payment  in  the  new  coin  is  a  repudiation  of  a  part  of  this  debt. 

Now  it  is  repudiation  to  pay  the  national  debt  in  anything  but 
gold.  What  was  his  position  when  the  act  of  March,  1869,  was  here  on 
its  passage  ?  At  that  time  he  exclaimed  : 

What  is  the  first  section  of  this  hill  1  It  is  simply  a  solemn  pledge  of  the 
United  States  that  all  the  obligations  of  the  United  States,  notes  and  bonds,  shall  be 
paid  in  gold  and  silver  coin,  except  only  those  where  the  law  expressly  provides 
that  they  shall  be  paid  in  lawful  money. 

And  again,  in  speaking  of  the  resumption  of  specie  payments,  he 

says : 

The  honor  of  the  country,  the  good  faith  of  the  nation,  the  interests  of  the 
laborer,  the  rich  and  the  poor,  all  classes,  demand  that  we  should  resume  specie 
payments  as  early  as  possible  and  place  all  the  obligations  of  the  people  of  the 
United  States  upon  the  solid  basis  of  gold  and  silver  coin. 

Sir,  this  theme  becomes  humiliating  to  every  honest  American 
mind.  It  fills  with  shame  every  honest,  patriotic  heart.  The  naked 
fact  confronts  us  at  every  step  that  no  pledge,  however  high,  solemn, 
or  binding  in  law  and  morals,  has  been  strong  enough  to  compel  the 
authors  of  our  financial  legislation  to  obey  it.  No  sense  of  national 
honor  or  good  faith  has  restrained  for  a  single  moment  the  unbridled 
avarice  of  idle  interest-bearing  capital  whenever  it  has  been  tempted, 
like  some  hungry  marauding  animal,  to  break  over  the  barriers 
erected  between  it  and  new  fields  of  spoliage  that  lie  beyond.  The 
silver  dollar  came  to  us  with  the  birth  of  our  Government.  It  was 
devised  as  a  unit  of  value  by  Thomas  Jefferson  and  adopted  by  Con¬ 
gress  in  the  days  of  Washington,  Hamilton,  and  Morris.  It  stood  as 
honored  as  gold  through  every  storm  that  beat  upon  this  Govern¬ 
ment.  It  is  associated  with  all  our  development,  our  strength,  our 
growth,  and  our  glory.  With  it  as  a  currency,  more  than  any  other, 
the  picket-lines  of  civilization  have  pushed  westward.  The  pioneer 
in  the  shadow  of  the  great  forests  or  on  the  wide  prairies  toiled  to 
lay  it  by,  one  by  one,  until  the  coveted  sum  of  one  hundred  lay  be¬ 
fore  him.  Then  tightening  the  girths  of  his  saddle,  he  rode  with  speed 
to  the  distant  land  office,  where  the  Government  took  his  one  hundred 
silver  dollars  for  eighty  acres  of  land,  which  thenceforward  became 
that  most  blessed  spot  of  earth,  a  home ;  a  home  where  trees  were 
planted,  where  children  were  born  and  grew  to  be  men  and  women, 
and  then  in  turn  went  forth  into  the  great  world,  still  to  the  west, 
there  to  live  over  again  in  labor  and  privation  the  lives  of  the  father 
and  mother  left  behind. 

The  silver  dollar  is  peculiarly  the  laboring- man’s  dollar,  as  far 
as  he  may  desire  specie.  When  specie  payments  were  authorized 
before  the  war  it  was  the  favorite  currency  with  the  people,  and 
it  will  be  so  again  whenever  a  general  circulation  of  coin  is  ob¬ 
tained,  if  that  shall  ever  happen.  Throughout  all  the  financial 
panics  that  have  assailed  this  country  no  man  has  been  bold  enough 
to  raise  his  hand  to  strike  it  down  ;  no  man  has  ever  dared  to 
whisper  of  a  contemplated  assault  upon  it ;  and  when  the  hour  of 
its  danger  and  destruction  drew  nigh,  when  the  12th  day  of  Feb¬ 
ruary,  1873,  approached,  the  day  of  doom  to  the  American  dollar, 
the  dollar  of  our  fathers,  how  silent  was  the  work  of  the  enemy  ! 
Not  a  sound,  not  a  word,  no  note  of  warning  to  the  American  peo- 


11 


pie  that  their  favorite  coin  was  about  to  be  destroyed  as  money ; 
that  the  greatest  financial  revolution  of  modern  times  was  in  con¬ 
templation  and  about  to  be  accomplished  against  their  highest  and 
dearest  rights!  The  tax-payers  of  the  United  States  were  no  more 
notified  or  consulted  on  this  momentous  measure  than  the  slaves 
on  a  southern  plantation  before  the  war,  when  their  master  made  up 
his  mind  to  increase  their  task  or  to  change  them  from  a  corn  to  a 
cotton  field.  Never  since  the  foundation  of  this  Government  has  a 
law  of  such  vital  and  tremendous  import,  or  indeed  of  any  impor¬ 
tance  at  all,  crawled  into  our  statute-books  so  furtively  and  so  noise¬ 
lessly  as  this.  Its  enactment  there  was  as  completely  unknown  to 
the  people,  and  indeed  to  four-fifths  of  Congress  itself,  as  the  pres¬ 
ence  of  a  burglar  in  a  house  at  midnight  is  to  its  sleeping  inmates. 
This  was  rendered  possible  partly  because  the  clandestine  movement 
was  so  utterly  unexpected,  and  partly  from  the  nature  of  the  bill  in 
which  it  occurred.  The  silver  dollar  of  American  history  was  de¬ 
monetized  in  an  act  entitled  “  An  act  revising  and  amending  the  laws 
relative  to  the  mints,  assay  offices,  and  coiuage  of  the  United  States.” 
The  avowed  and  ostensible  purpose  of  this  act  is  set  forth  by  Dr. 
Linderman,  the  Director  of  the  Mint,  in  his  recent  work  on  Money 
and  Legal  Tender.  After  citing  very  fully  the  legislation  of  this 
country  on  the  subject  of  mints  and  coinage,  he  says : 

There  were,  however,  provisions  of  law,  conflicting  in  their  character,  as  to  the 
relative  powers  and  duties  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  and  the  Director  of 
the  Mint.  To  remedy  this  and  to  consolidate  coinage  enactments  were  the  chief 
objects  of  the  act  approved  February  12,  1873,  revising  and  amending  the  laws 
relative  to  the  mints,  assay  offices,  and.  coinage  of  the  United  States. 

This  act  embraces  sixty-seven  sections,  and  fills  twelve  closely 
printed  pages  of  the  seventeenth  volume  of  the  United  States  Stat¬ 
utes  at  Large.  From  this  voluminous  and  prolix  measure,  proclaim¬ 
ing,  as  it  did,  other  and  totally  different  objects  to  accomplish,  it  was 
only  necessary  to  silently  omit  the  few  words  that  for  nearly  a  hun¬ 
dred  years  had  floated  the  old  familiar  dollar  as  a  full  legal  tender 
down  the  stream  of  Time.  This  was  done  in  the  fifteenth  section, 
which  I  quote  in  full  in  order  that  the  people  may  see  for  themselves 
exactly  how  this  great  wrong  was  effected.  It  reads  as  follows  : 

That  the  silver  coins  of  the  United  States  shall  be  a  trade-dollar,  a  half  dollar  or 
fifty-cent  piece,  a  quarter  dollar  or  twenty-five-cent  piece,  a  dime  or  ten-cent  piece  : 
and  the  weight  of  the  trade-dollar  shall  lie  420  grains  troy;  the  weight  of  the  half 
dollar  shall  be  twelve  grams  (grammes)  and  one-half  of  a  gram,  (gramme;)  the 
quarter  dollar  and  the  dime  shall  be  respectively  one-half  and  one-fifth  of  the 
weight  of  said  half  dollar;  and  said  coins  shall  be  a  legal  tender  at  their  nominal 
value  for  any  amount  not  exceeding  five  dollars  in  any  one  payment. 

Thus  it  will  be  seen  that  in  declaring  what  the  silver  coins  of  the 
United  States  should  be,  the  dollar,  so  long  imbedded  in  our  history, 
was  dropped,  literally  thrown  away  as  useless,  and  another  coin, 
styled  a  trade-dollar,  of  no  service  to  the  people  as  a  legal  tender,  was 
inserted  in  its  place;  or,  as  the  Director  of  the  Mint  expresses  it — 

Under  the  provisions  of  this  act  the  coinage  and  issue  was  discontinued,  of  the 
silver  dollar  of  412J  grains,  the  three-cent  silver  piece,  the  five-cent  silver  piece, 
and  the  two-cent  bronze  piece. 

And  by  a  subsequent  act  of  Congress,  July  22,  1876,  the  legal-ten¬ 
der  quality  of  the  trade-dollar  for  even  the  small  amount  of  five  dol¬ 
lars  was  repealed,  and  now  it  is  not  a  legal  tender  for  anything  or 
any  amount. 

But,  sir,  having  pointed  out  the  false  pretenses  under  cover  of 
which  the  American  silver  dollar  was  eliminated  from  our  money 
system,  it  yet  remains  to  inquire  into  the  real  reasons  for  such  an 


act.  In  tlie  first  place  liad  silver  failed  in  its  functions  as  a  specie 
basis  any  more  than  gold  ?  Had  it  been  found  any  less  capable  than 
its  twin  metal  in  upholding  a  paper  currency  on  which  the  com¬ 
merce  and  business  of  the  world  has  been  transacted  since  the  be¬ 
ginning  of  civilization  ?  These  two  metals  of  gold  and  silver  have 
come  down  to  us  together,  from  the  days  of  Abraham,  Isaac,  and 
Jacob.  They  were  in  great  abundance  and  in  high  favor  when 
Israel  built  her  temple  and  adorned  the  city  of  Jerusalem.  They 
crept  along  the  shores  and  islands  of  the  Mediterranean,  hand  in 
hand,  as  arbitrary  factors  in  human  affairs.  They  spread  over 
Europe,  as  inseparable  allies,  during  the  dark  and  barbarous  ages 
that  intervened  between  the  downfall  of  Rome  and  the  discovery 

c 

of  the  art  of  printing,  the  revival  of  learning,  in  the  fifteenth  cen¬ 
tury.  The  cupidity  of  man  has  delved  into  the  earth,  toiled  across 
the  stormy  seas,  broken  solemn  treaties,  sworn  false  oaths,  murdered 
his  fellow-man,  and  bartered  away  his  soul  alike  for  them  both. 
The  Spaniard  and  the  Portuguese  swept  whole  races  in  the  West 
Indies,  Mexico,  Central  and  South  America,  first  into  slavery  and 
then  out  of  existence,  in  their  accursed  greed  and  thirst  for  gold  and 
silver.  Throughout  all  our  colonial  history  these  metals  were  linked 
together  in  an  embrace  that  no  convulsion  could  tear  asunder.  And 
when  our  Government  emerged,  weary  and  blood-stained  from  the 
Revolution,  our  fathers  found  them  both  standing  together  on  our 
threshold  as  a  mighty  tradition  of  all  the  past.  They  were  adopted 
together  as  our  measure  of  values  because  other  nations  had  done  the 
same.  They  entered  their  career  as  American  money  together,  equal 
in  dignity  before  the  law.  By  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States 
they  were  introduced  into  each  new  incoming  State  of  our  expand¬ 
ing  Union  on  terms  of  absolute  equality.  We  find  by  article  1, 
section  10  of  that  instrument  that — 

>Io  State  shall  *  *  *  coin  money  ;  emit  bills  of  credit ;  make  anything  but 
gold  and  silver  coin  a  tender  in  payment  of  debts. 

From  that  day  to  this  I  challenge  every  page  of  American  his¬ 
tory  to  show  a  single  instance  in  which  the  silver  dollar  has  not  been 
as  brave,  as  firm,  and  as  reliable  as  the  gold  dollar.  I  challenge  the 
sad  records  of  every  financial  alarm,  panic,  or  crash  that  ever  befell 
us  to  show  where  for  a  single  day  or  hour  silver  was  not  as  intrepid 
and  fearless  in  the  money  markets  as  gold. 

From  1792  to  1873,  from  the  coinage  of  the  American  silver  dollar 
to  the  day  of  its  insidious  destruction,  eighty-one  years,  gold  and  sil¬ 
ver  never  fluctuated  in  their  relation  to  each  other  but  a  fraction 
over  3  per  cent.,  and  during  most  of  that  time  silver  money  ranked 
higher  than  gold  money,  and  did  so  the  day  it  was  destroyed.  It  is 
true  that  both  these  metals,  so  precious  iu  the  traditions  of  mankind, 
broke  down  at  once  when  this  Government  was  called  on  to  fight  for 
its  life,  when  the  ultimate  and  extreme  necessity  of  the  hour  de¬ 
manded  a  money  stronger  than  them  both,  based  on  the  confidence 
of  the  people  that  their  Government  would  live  and  not  die;  yet  when 
they  fell,  they  fell  together.  Neither  the  one,  nor  the  other,  nor  both 
united  were  sufficient  to  make  even  a  respectable  struggle  for  national 
existence,  and  they  abandoned  the  field  on  the  first  roar  of  hostile 
cannon,  hut  silver  did  not  flee  any  sooner  nor  get  under  cover  any 
quicker  than  gold.  It  may  then,  I  think,  he  safely  assumed  in  the 
light  of  all  experience  that  the  real  reason  for  demonetizing  silver  i3 
not  to  be  found  in  its  failure  to  be  the  peer  under  all  circumstances, 
in  all  ages,  and  in  all  nations  of  the  other  precious  metal  which  has. 


“now  become  so  strangely,  so  suddenly,  and  so  surreptitiously  exalted 
in  the  eyes  of  the  money  power  as  the  sole  standard  of  values. 

Pursuing  our  inquiry,  therefore,  on  this  point  we  come  next  upon 
one  of  the  principal  reasons  now  assigned  for  abandoning  silver  coin 
as  money.  It  is  true  that  the  sincerity  of  this  reason  is  open  to  the 
suspicion  which  always  taints  an  argument  brought  forward  as  an 
after-thought  to  justify  an  act  which  evaded  all  discussion  at  the 
time  of  its  passage,  but  nevertheless  it  shall  be  fairly  considered  even 
at  this  late  day.  It  is  now  urged  with  great  vehemence  by  the  advo¬ 
cates  of  the  gold  standard  alone,  that  because  here  and  there  a  Euro¬ 
pean  monarchy  with  the  hardest  worked  and  poorest  paid  peasantry 
on  the  face  of  the  earth  has  banished  silver,  we  are  called  upon  by 
our  business  relations  to  do  the  same.  It  is  urged  that  we  are  to  fol¬ 
low  and  not  lead  in  the  affairs  of  the  world.  According  to  this  argu¬ 
ment  we  are  to  trail  in  the  footsteps  of  governments  whose  principles 
we  denounce,  and  whose  laboring  people  are  fleeing  in  constant 
streams  from  their  shores  to  our  own  in  order  to  escai>e  oppression 
and  starvation. 

Sir,  no  one  disputes  the  fact  that  all  civilized  governments  have 
certain  communities  of  interest;  but  to  my  mind  the  American  Re¬ 
public  is  less  dependent  for  its  strength  and  prosperity  on  the  con¬ 
duct  and  policies  of  other  nations  than  any  other  government  now 
in  existence.  Nature  in  her  most  lavish  mood  has  conspired  to  make 
the  American  people,  in  fact  as  well  as  in  name,  an  independent  peo¬ 
ple.  Our  place  on  the  map  of  the  globe  is  an  isolated  one.  Mighty 
oceans  stretch  out  between  us  and  all  the  first-class  powers  of  the 
world.  What  foreign  neighbors  we  have  on  our  immediate  borders 
are  weak  and  unimportant.  We  are  not  only  substantially  alone  as 
a.  political  power  ou  the  North  American  continent,  and  separated  by 
long  distances  from  all  the  great  nations  of  the  earth,  but  we  possess 
within  ourselves,  in  unfailing  abundance,  every  article!  and  every 
element  of  national  wealth  and  glory.  Our  vast  domain  will  feed 
uncounted  millions,  mountains  of  iron  and  of  all  other  useful  ores 
respond  to  every  call  of  scientific  progress,  while  the  intelligent  in¬ 
dustry  of  man,  if  not  paralyzed  by  bad  government,  will  forever 
supply  all  his  wants,  comforts,  and  luxuries.  On  such  a  theater  our 
greatest  resource  is  self-reliance,  and  wo  have  but  little  need  of 
examples  or  alliances  furnished  by  less  fortunate  nations. 

Admitting,  however,  the  argument,  for  the  sake  of  meeting  it,  that 
our  financial  policy  in  regard  to  a  specie  basis  ought  to  be  in  har¬ 
mony  with  the  rest  of  the  world,  let  us  examine  into  the  actual  facts 
as  they  now  exist  in  the  various  money  systems  of  every  people  with 
whom  we  have  even  the  slightest  commercial  intercourse.  Has  silver 
in  the  general  trade  and  business  of  nations  fallen  into  such  discredit 
that  we  are  compelled  to  cast  it  aside  in  order  to  keep  pace  with  a 
wide-spread  financial  revolution  ?  Is  it;  held  iu  such  dishonor  as  a 
medium  of  traffic  throughout  the  world  that  we  cau  no  longer  uphold 
in  with  credit  to  ourselves  ?  On  the  contrary  a  careful  estimate  shows 
that  silver  is  an  enormous  and  overwhelming  favorite.  Of  the  entire 
trading  and  commercial  populations  of  the  whole  earth  696,250,000 
more  people  have  silver  alone  as  their  standard  of  values,  and  trans¬ 
act  all  their  business  upon  it  as  a  specie  basis,  than  those  who  have 
gold  alone  for  similar  purposes.  From  the  same  sources  of  informa¬ 
tion  we  learn  that  744,200,000  more  people  use  silver  alone  than  use 
gold  and  silver  both  as  their  metallic  currency.  In  this  last  state¬ 
ment  I  include  the  population  of  the  United  States  as  using  the  dou¬ 
ble  standard,  for  we  shall  return  to  it  at  once,  as  far  at  least  as  a 


specie  basis  can  now  exist.  The  great  fact,  therefore,  is  that  in  the 
mighty  bulk  of  intelligent  mankind  more  than  four  times  as  many 
people  have  chosen  silver  as  have  chosen  gold,  and  more  than  five 
times  as  many  have  chosen  silver  as  have  chosen  gold  and  silver  to¬ 
gether. 

The  following  table,  giving  the  financial  systems  and  the  popula¬ 
tions  of  the  various  governments  of  the  world,  will  be  found  in  the 
main  correct: 


Distribution  of  gold,  silver,  and  double  currency  throughout  the  world. 


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It  will  be  seen  from  tliis  statement  tliat  silver  coin,  as  money,  not 
only  meets  the  desires  of  four- fifths  of  the  human  race,  but  that 
those  who  use  it  as  a  standard  occupy  more  than  three-quarters  of 
the  inhabited  parts  of  the  globe.  Germany  is  perhaps  prematurely 
placed  in  the  list  of  nations  using  gold  alone.  It  is  true  she  has  at¬ 
tempted  to  adopt  the  gold  standard,  but  there  are  still  two  hundred 
millions  of  silver  currency  in  the  hands  of  her  people,  and  they  are 
reluctant  to  give  it  up  and  see  it  driven  away  from  fatherland. 
Whether  the  empire  will  bo  entirely  successful  in  depriving  its  sub¬ 
jects  of  this  favorite  money  y.et  remains  to  be  proven.  Ju  view  of 
all  the  foregoing  facts,  however — in  view  of  the  history  and  condi¬ 
tion  of  the  world  on  this  question — the  enemies  of  the  silver  dollar  in 
the  United  States  who,  having  first  destroyed  it,  seek  now  to  justify 
themselves  by  slandering  the  reputation  of  its  metal  in  distant  lands, 
must  stand  before  their  injured  countrymen  covered  with  shame  and 
confusion.  They  are  utterly  overwhelmed  and  beaten  from  their 
position  by  the  general  testimony  of  the  civilized  races  of  men,  and 
we  are  left  at  this  point  to  follow  them  next  to  their  final  and  in  fact 
real  reason  for  their  assault  upon  silver  money. 

Sir,  I  touch  now  upon  an  issue  as  old  as  human  society  and  as  uni¬ 
versal  as  the  loaning  of  money  at  interest  and  the  investment  of 
capital  for  income.  Two  classes  have  existed  in  every  age  of  history 
on  the  question  of  money.  All  such  as  plow,  sow,  and  reap  ;  who 
spin,  weave,  and  make  merchandise  for  sale  ;  who  manage  and  work 
the  caverns  of  coal  and  iron,  and  the  blast-furnaces  and  forges ;  who 
construct  railroads,  build  ships,  and  found  cities ;  all  such  as  are  in 
any  way  pushing  on  the  cause  of  progress  aud  material  development 
and  who  desire  to  keep  their  capital,  whatever  it  may  be,  and  espe¬ 
cially  that  greatest  of  all  capital,  the  bone  and  muscle  of  the 
laborer,  actively  employed,  constitute  one  class.  Those  who  have 
stepped  aside  from  the  active  moving  column  of  affairs  and  with¬ 
drawn  themselves  and  all  they  own  from  the  trade  and  business  of 
the  world,  intending  thenceforward  to  fasten  their  idle  wealth  on  the 
productions  of  labor  as  a  consumer,  and  not  as  an  assistance,  consti¬ 
tute  the  other.  Of  these  two  classes  those  who  compose  the  first 
desire  money  to  be  plentiful  aud  cheap,  for  they  are  working  to  obtain 
it,  while  those  who  compose  the  latter  desire  money  to  be  scarce  and 
dear,  because  they  already  have  it  in  abundance  to  loan  and  to  in¬ 
vest  at  high  rates  of  interest  and  profit.  And  it  was  in  the  real  and 
actual  interest  of  this  latter  powerful  class  that  silver  was  demone¬ 
tized  in  February,  1873,  not  because  it  was  less  valuable  as  money 
than  gold,  nor  because  such  a  change  was  demanded  by  the  policies 
of  foreign  nations,  but  simply  because  retired  capital  desired  to 
diminish  the  amount  of  money  of  every  kind  circulating  in  the 
hands  of  the  people. 

Silver  was  selected  as  the  victim  for  sacrifice  on  that  occasion  be¬ 
cause  it  was  thought,  on  account  of  certain  circumstances  yet  to  be 
noticed,  that  it  could  be  more  successfully  assailed  than  the  other- 
kinds  of  money  then  in  existence.  The  managers  of  the  great  money 
centers  in  this  country  and  in  Europe  saw  with  avaricious  alarm  the 
bright  streams  of  silver  beginning  to  increase  in  volume  and  in  value 
as  they  flowed  from  the  mouths  of  our  mines,  and  now  we  hear  from 
their  angry  throats,  and  from  an  apparently  still  angrier  newspaper- 
press  which  they  control,  a  cry  without  ceasing  against  silver  infla¬ 
tion  arising  from  an  overproduction  of  the  metal.  They  have  here¬ 
tofore  filled  the  world  with  their  hostile  clamor  mainly  against  a 
paper  currency  not  immediately  convertible  into  coin  of  intrinsic 


17 


value,  but  it  now  appears  that  there  can  be,  in  their  own  amiable 
language,  an  insane  inflation  of  a  currency  which  lias  this  very  in¬ 
trinsic  value  itself.  We  have  heard  much  talk  to  prove  that  gold 
and  silver  are  the  only  real  money,  that  they  have  an  absolute  value 
as  such  everywhere  and  at  all  times ;  but  we  now  discover  that  even 
these  precious  metals  may  become  more  abundant  than  is  agreeable 
to  those  who  want  the  purchasing  power  of  money  increased  by  less¬ 
ening  the  quantity  in  circulation  until  fifty  dollars  will  buy  in  a 
farm  worth  a  thousand  under  the  foreclosure  of  a  mortgage.  Is  it 
true,  however,  that  for  the  genuine  interests  of  the  American  people, 
for  their  advancement  in  trade  and  development,  and  for  the  pros¬ 
perity  of  our  commerce  throughout  the  world,  too  much  silver  has 
been  produced  in  the  United  States  or  anywhere  else  ?  Has  silver, 
as  now  claimed,  ever  threatened  to  pour  into  the  channels  of  busi¬ 
ness  such  floods  and  torrents  as  would  unsettle  and  sweep  away  all 
the  landmarks  of  safety  ?  We  will  examine  this  question. 

The  history  of  the  production  of  the  precious  metals  is  one  of  great 
and  prevailing  interest.  Although  they  have  been  arbitrarily  deter¬ 
mined  upon  as  the  money  of  mankind,  yet  it  has  never  been  possible 
for  the  highest  human  intelligence  to  foretell  their  supply  or  to  say 
with  certainty  that  their  production  will  not  fail  altogether.  The 
quantity  of  a  circulating  medium  sufficient  to  meet  the  legitimate 
demands  of  trade  can  be  estimated,  but  who  has  ever  been  able  to 
look  into  the  mines  and  declare  how  far  their  veins  of  ore  extend  or 
how  soon  they  will  cease  to  yield  ?  Who  has  ever  been  able  to  point 
out  where  new  mines  may  be  opened  into  the  hidden  riches  of  the 
earth  to  take  the  place  of  those  that  are  worn  out,  sterile,  and  bar¬ 
ren  ?  The  result  has  been  that  while  the  precious  metals  have  been 
declared  the  standard  of  values,  they  have  themselves  always  been 
an  unknown  quantity,  and  the  irregularity,  uncertainty,  and  insuffi¬ 
ciency  of  their  production  have  caused  frequent  and  crushing  disas¬ 
ters  in  all  countries  and  in  every  period  of  history,  and  have  often 
compelled  the  strongest  governments  of  ancient  and  modern  times  to 
entirely  abandon  them. 

It  is  not  my  purpose,  however,  to  dwell  on  this  point  further  than 
to  meet  the  argument  based  upon  an  alleged  overproduction  of  sil¬ 
ver  in  recent  years.  From  a  report  made  not  long  since  by  a  com¬ 
mittee  in  the  British  Parliament  it  appears,  as  nearly  as  can  be  esti¬ 
mated,  that  the  entire  production  of  silver  throughout  the  world  dur¬ 
ing  the  last  twenty-five  years  has  reached  about  ,$1,400,000,000.  The 
increase  in  its  production  during  that  period  arose  from  about 
.$40,000,000,  in  1852,  to  $80,000,000,  in  1875,  and  the  annual  amount 
produced  at  this  time  may  be  placed  at  $70,000,000.  Of  these  amounts 
South  America.  Mexico,  and  the  United  States  produced  all  excepting 
about  $10,000,000  a  year,  arising  from  the  silver  resources  of  all  other 
countries.  In  our  own  country  the  development  of  this  great  agency 
of  national  prosperity  has  all  taken  place  in  the  last  eighteen  years, 
substantially  in  the  last  ten. 

The  following  estimate,  made  by  the  Commissioner  for  Mining 
Statistics,  shows  the  annual  production  of  silver  and  its  increase  in 
the  United  States : 


1859  .  $100,  000 

1860  .  150,000 

1861  . : .  2,000,000 

1862  .  4,500,000 

1863  .  8,  400,  000 

1864-1869  (average) . .  11,  625, 000 

1870 .  16,000,000 


2  vo 


18 


1871  .  23,000,000 

1872  .  28,000,000 

1873  .  35,750,000 

1874  . 32,000,000 

1875  .  32,000,000 


Estimating  tlie  production  of  1876  and  1877  the  same  as  1875,  and 
we  find  that  the  entire  amount  of  silver  yielded  hy  the  mines  of  the 
United  States  since  they  began  to  pay  for  working  them  has  reached 
but  a  trifle  over  the  comparatively  small  sum  of  $250,000,000.  This 
is  less  than  one-half  the  amount  of  our  present  volume  of  currency  ;• 
yet  when  those  who  are  interested  in  making  and  keeping  a  scarcity 
of  money  in  circulation,  noticed  an  increase  of  only  $12,000,000  from 
1870  to  1872,  they  took  the  alarm  which  resulted  in  the  act  of  1873, 
proscribing  and  outlawing  it  from  the  companionship  of  gold  as 
money.  It  will  not  do  to  say  that  the  demand  for  silver  had  failed, 
for  aside  from  what  our  own  people  needed  at  home,  the  demand  from 
abroad  was  so  great  that  in  the  very  act  demonetizing  it  here  pro¬ 
vision  was  made  for  the  coinage  of  a  dollar  that  we  found  neces¬ 
sary  for  our  foreign  trade.  It  was  a  dollar  of  the  weight  of  420  grains 
troy,  and  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  in  his  recent  report,  says : 

Tills  provision  was  made  at  a  time  when  such  a  dollar  was  worth  in  the  market 
102.12  in  gold,  and  was  designed  for  the  use  of  trade  in  China,  where  silver  was  the 
only  standard. 

The  great  demand  for  this  coin,  especially  in  our  trade  with  China, 
is  shown  by  “reports  made  by  the  two  leading  foreign  banks  of  China, 
the  Oriental  Bank  and  the  Hong  Kong  and  Shanghai  Banking  Cor¬ 
poration,  dated  respectively  January  31  and  30,  1877,  and  furnished 
by  the  United  States  Consulate  at  Hong  Kong  to  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury.77  I  find  these  reports  quoted  by  the  Director  of  the  Mint, 
and  I  extract  from  them  the  following  statements : 

The  United  States  trade-dollar  has  been  well  received  in  China,  and  is  eagerly 
welcomed  in  those  parts  of  the  country  where  the  true  value  of  the  coin  is  known. 
It  is  a  legal  tender  at  the  ports  of  Foo-cboo  and  Canton,  in  China,  and  also  at 
.Saigon  and  Singapore ;  and,  although  not  legally  current  in  this  colony,  it  is  anx¬ 
iously  sought  after  by  the  Chinese,  and  in  the  bazaars  it  is  seldom  to  be' purchased. 
In  proof  of  the  estimation  in  which  the  trade-dollar  is  held  in  the  south  of  China, 
we  need  only  state  that  the  bulk  of  the  direct  exchange  business  between  Hong 
Kong  and  San  Francisco,  which  is  very  considerable,  is  done  in  this  coin,  the  na¬ 
tives  preferring  it  to  the  Mexican  dollar.  Late  advices  from  San  Francisco  report 
that  so  great  is  the  demand  for  trade-dollars  for  shipment  to  China  that  the  California 
mint  is  uuequal  to  the  task  of  turning  out  the  coin  fast  enough  to  satisfy  require¬ 
ments.  *  *  *  My  opinion  is  that  ultimately  it  will  be  current  all  over  China. 
It  is  the  best  coin  that  ever  has  been  imported," and,  being  produced  at  the  fountain¬ 
head  of  silver,  can  be  laid  down  more  cheaply  than  any  other  dollar.  *  *  *  China 
requires  many  millions  of  dollars  annually,  and  while  the  clean  Mexican  dollar 
will  be  imported  for  the  north  of  China,  tlie  trade-dollar  will  be  imported  for  the 
south.  I  would  roughly  estimate  that  the  San  Francisco  steamers  will  bring  from 
four  to  six  lacs  of  trade-dollars  (from  four  to  six  hundred  thousand)  each  fort¬ 
nightly  trip  all  the  year  round. 

The  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  also  informs  us  that  since  the  trade- 
dollar  was  authorized  it  has  been  coined  to  the  large  amount  of 
$30,710,400,  mainly  to  meet  this  and  other  foreign  demands  for  silver 
money.  It  is  true,  however,  that  he  further  states  that  the  export 
demand  for  the  trade-dollar  has  now  almost  if  not  quite  ceased.  It 
is  not  strange  that  this  should  be  so,  when  this  Government  has  done 
all  in  its  power  to  dishonor  it  at  home;  first  limiting  it  as  a  legal 
tender  to  the  insignificant  sum  of  $5,  and  hastening  soon  afterward  to 
strip  it  of  even  this  small  badge  of  respectability.  Distant  people, 
naturally  suspicious  of  our  institutions,  would  necessarily  reject  a 
coin  on  which  we  ourselves  have  placed  such  a  stigma  of  disgrace, 
however  great,  as  we  have  seen,  may  be  their  demand  for  silver 


19 


money.  In  fact,  no  artifice,  no  cunning  device  has  been  spared  to 
bring  the  silver  dollar  into  contempt  and  to  drive  it  out  of  existence, 
although  the  American  people  and  the  people  of  all  lands  and  of 
every  form  of  civilization  plead  for  its  restoration  to  favor  and  to  an 
ample  circulation. 

If  there  are  some,  however,  who  still  think  that  these  assaults  on  silver 
were  inspired  by  any  other  motive  than  the  fear  of  too  much  money, 
allow  me  to  recall  an  incident  in  financial  history  full  of  teaching 
on  this  point.  When  the  revelation  of  gold  took  place  in  California, 
and  on  the  other  side  of  the  world  in  Australia  about  the  same  time, 
an  impulse  was  given  to  the  progress  of  mankind  greater  than  has 
been  produced  by  any  other  one  event  since  Columbus  discovered 
America.  It  quickened  every  energy  of  labor,  aroused  all  the  great 
industries  everywhere  into  new  and  startling  activity,  revived  the 
drooping  sails  of  commerce  in  every  sea,  and  sent  the  loaded  cara¬ 
vans  of  railroad  transportation  flying  in  every  direction  over  the  face 
of  the  earth.  The  whole  world  rejoiced  with  one  exception.  The 
creditor  class  in  every  clime  beneath  the  sun  looked  on  in  sullen  dis¬ 
trust  and  dread.  And  in  1856,  when  the  production  of  gold  had 
reached  its  highest  point,  and  when  it  was  supposed  that  it  would 
continue  to  increase,  this  class  broke  forth  in  the  different  countries 
of  Europe  in  favor  of  demonetizing  gold,  because  the  supply  was 
making  money  too  plentiful.  De  Quincey,  Chevalier,  and  other 
writers,  made  earnest  and  elaborate  arguments  to  show  that  the  in¬ 
crease  in  the  flow  of  gold  was  so  great  that  soon  it  would  be  within 
the  easy  reach  of  all  classes,  and  then  its  power  to  purchase  labor 
and  property  in  large  quantities  for  very  small  sums  would  be  forever 
gone.  Germany,  and  Austria,  and  some  other  European  governments, 
heeded  these  arguments,  and  in  1857  actually  demonetized  gold  in 
order  to  maintain  the  scarcity  of  money.  The  reason  why  this  ques¬ 
tion  did  not  seriously  agitate  the  financial  circles  of  the  United  States 
is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  at  that  time  we  had  no  great  creditor 
class  in  this  country  ;  we  had  no  stupendous  national  debt  held  as 
an  investment  for  fixed  incomes  ;  no  such  State,  municipal,  and  cor¬ 
poration  debts  as  have  since  filled  all  the  stock  markets  with  interest- 
bearing  bonds,  and  which  are  now  a  draining  tax  on  all  the  labor 
and  production  of  the  country.  Had  our  situation  been  then  as  it  is 
now  we  would  have  seen  the  holders  of  Government  securities  and 
all  other  bonds  wherein  the  payment  of  money  from  the  many  to  the 
few  was  nominated,  as  badly  affrighted  in  this  country  at  what  was 
called  an  overproduction  of  gold  as  the  holders  of  similar  securi¬ 
ties  and  bonds  were  in  Europe.  The  laws  which  govern  the  human 
heart  in  its  love  of  gain  are  the  same  everywhere.  The  creditor 
class  is  not  so  much  concerned  what  coin  or  other  material  shall  con¬ 
stitute  money  as  it  is  that  there  shall  be  no  redundancy  after  its 
demands  are  paid. 

The  report  of  the  monetary  commission  submitted  to  this  body  in 
March  last  by  the  distinguished  Senator  from  Nevada  [Mr.  Jones] 
comments  on  this  fact  as  follows : 

In  all  the  European  discussions,  after  1848  and  prior  to  the  German  demonetiza¬ 
tion  of  silver  and  its  consequences,  the  point  made  was  not  that  either  metal  had 
depreciated  relatively  to  the  other,  but  that  by  reason  of  extraordinary  supplies  of 
gold  from  California  and  Australia,  supplemented,  about  18C5,  by  new  supplies  of 
silver  from  Nevada,  both  metals  had  depreciated  relatively  to  labor  and  commod¬ 
ities,  and  that  those  having  fixed  incomes  were  being  injured  by  a  rise  in  prices. 
So  long  as  the  double  standard  existed,  a  new  supply  of  either  metal  was  only  an 
addition  to  and  only  affected  the  value  of  the  general  mass  of  money  and  not  the 
relati  ve  value  of  the  metals. 


The  “fall  in  gold,”  which  Chevalier  lamented  in  185T,  was  its  fall  in  relation  to 
property.  He  pointed  out  how  the  double  standard  had  prevented  any  change 
from  occurring  in  its  relation  to  silver  and  how  it  would  continue  to  do  so  until 
the  silver  of  double-standard  countries  was  exhausted.  In  order,  therefore,  to 
protect  the  interests  of  the  income  classes  it  was  claimed  to  be  necessary  to  de¬ 
monetize  one  of  the  metals,  and  gold  being  the  metal  which  then  promised  the 
most  abundant  yield  was  selected  for  the  purpose. 

It  was  the  depreciation  in  the  value  of  the  precious  metals  and  of  money,  sup¬ 
posed  to  have  already  resulted  from  the  new  supplies  of  gold,  which  made  him  the 
conspicuous  advocate  of  the  demand  that  one  of  the  metals  should  be  demonetized 
in  order  to  “redress  the  situation.” 

It  appears,  therefore,  that  gold,  even  gold,  the  very  god  of  a  fierce 
idolatry  in  our  midst  at  this  time,  has  committed  the  mortal  sin  of 
inflation,  and  has  been  cursed  and  ostracised  on  that  account  by  the 
usurers  and  money-changers  as  well  as  its  more  modest  companions, 
silver  and  paper.  Aud  if  now  both  the  precious  metals  threatened 
to  increase  beyond  the  wishes  and  interests  of  this  class  they  would 
be  earnestly  inquiring  and  scheming  into  some  plan  by  which  they 
could  demonetize  gold  and  silver  alike,  and  substitute  diamonds  or 
some  other  scarcer  and  more  difficult  commodity  to  obtain  as  the 
basis  of  specie  payments  and  the  money  in  which  all  debts  due  to 
them  should  be  paid. 

There  remains,  however,  one  other  argument  in  connection  with 
the  alleged  overproduction  and  inflation  of  silver  which  requires 
attention.  In  the  name  of  good  faith  it  has  been  urged  here  in  this 
body  and  elsewhere  that,  although  silver  is  specified  as  plainly  as 
gold  in  all  our  financial  legislation,  yet  it  was  produced  in  such 
meager  quantities  at  the  time  our  national  debt  was  created  that 
the  purchasers  of  our  bonds  could  not  have  reasonably  supposed  they 
were  ever  to  receive  it  in  payment  of  the  same,  notwithstanding  the 
law  expressly  said  they  should.  In  other  words,  it  is  an  argument 
fo  release  the  bondholder  from  the  absolute,  definitely  written  words 
of  the  law  on  the  ground  that  he  could  not  foresee  that  the  Govern¬ 
ment  would  ever  have  silver  enough  to  fulfill  the  law.  This  is  the 
highest,  boldest  note  of  repudiation  ever  heard  in  this  country ;  an 
open  admission  of  the  law  and  an  open,  square  demand  for  its  viola¬ 
tion. 

No  facts  or  surrounding  circumst  ances  at  the  time  the  contract  was 
made  can  for  a  moment  justify  such  a  flagrant  abr  ogation  of  its  most 
explicit  terms,  but  even  if  outside  conditions,  not  expressed  in  its 
face,  could  be  set  up  now  to  defeat  it,  I  assert  that  the  conditions 
alleged  by  the  advocates  of  this  argument  never  existed  at  all.  I 
assert  that  when  the  law  for  the  payment  of  the  public  debt  was 
construed  by  the  famous  act  of  March,  1869,  to  mean  payment  in 
gold  and  silver  both,  the  production  of  our  silver  mines  for  that  year 
was  $11,625,000,  and  had  annually  averaged  that  amount  since  1864. 
It  is  contended  that  the  purchasers  of  our  bonds  overlooked,  when 
they  were  first  issued,  the  feeble  supply  of  silver.  Did  an  annual 
average  production  of  nearly  twelve  millions  for  the  space  of  .  five 
years  preceding  the  act  of  March,  1869,  likewise  escape  their  atten¬ 
tion,  when  they  were  framing  that  act  in  their  own  interest  and  to 
suit  themselves  ?  But  again,  by  the  refunding  act  of  July  14,  1870, 
authorizing  the  issue  of  new  coin  bonds  to  be  substituted  for  the 
original  five-twenty  bonds,  making  thereby  a  new  contract  of  that 
date,  it  was  agreed  that  the  bonds  issued  by  virtue  of  that  act  should 
be  payable  in  silver  as  well  as  gold. 

During  that  very  year,  the  year  of  the  contract  which  is  to  be  en¬ 
forced  in  all  its  demands  against  the  flesh  and  blood  of  labor,  the 
generous  silver  mines  of  the  United  States  yielded  $16,000,000.  Was 


21 


not  tliis  sum  sufficient  to  put  the  authors  of  that  enactment,  the 
bondholders  in  Europe  and  America,  on  their  guard  against  making 
a  solemn  stipulation  to  receive  silver  money  in  payment  of  their 
bonds  unless  they  intended  at  that  time  to  do  so  ?  During  the  years 
1871  and  1872  many  hundred  millions  of  bonds  wero  issued  under  the 
act  of  July  14,  1870,  and  received  in  exchange  for  live- twenties. 
They  were  all  payable  by  the  express  terms  of  the  law  either  in  sil¬ 
ver  or  gold,  at  the  option  of  the  Government ;  and  the  production  of 
silver,  when  they  were  thus  voluntarily  received,  amounted,  according 
toour  mining  statistics,  in  1871  to  $23,000,000  and  in  1872  to  $28,750,000. 
It  is  no  doubt  true  that  the  product  of  these  two  latter  years  ex¬ 
cited  the  fear  of  a  silver  inflation  which  has  since  deepened  into  the 
absurd  panic  now  prevailing,  but  how  can  it  with  any  fairness  be 
pretended  that  the  bondholder  is  released  from  receiving  silver  accord¬ 
ing  to  his  agreement  on  the  ground  that  we  were  not  producing  that 
metal  when  the  laws  governing  the  contract  were  enacted  ?  And,  if 
it  was  not  coined  in  amounts  as  large  as  it  has  been  since,  yet  it 
wras  well  known  that  the  law  made  its  coinage  free  and  unlimited, 
and  no  one  has  a  right  to  complain  of  the  enforcement  of  a  law  of 
which  he  had  full  knowledge  at  the  time  his  rights  and  liabilities 
accrued.  The  argument  is  unsound  in  law  and  unsustained  by  the 
facts.  In  fact,  the  entire  movement  demonetizing  silver  is  to  be  ex¬ 
plained  solely  and  alone  on  the  principle  of  contraction ;  and  this 
brings  me,  in  this  connection,  to  consider  more  fully  that  destructive 
principle,  and  especially  to  examine  the  policy  and  the  effects  of  the 
law  of  January  14,  1875,  for  the  resumption  of  specie  payments  by 
an  enforced  contraction  of  the  non-interest-bearing  legal-tender  cur¬ 
rency  of  the  country.  The  law  of  February,  1873,  taking  away  sil¬ 
ver  money  from  the  people,  and  the  law  of  January,  1875,  fixing  the 
day,  now  less  than  a  year  in  advance,  when  the  greenback  shall  also 
perish,  are  twin  monsters  of  evil,  born  of  the  same  x^arentage  and 
linked  together  for  the  destruction  of  all  money  save  gold.  In  their 
discussion,  therefore,  they  are  entitled  to  a  joint  recognition. 

Sir,  in  the  entire  catalogue  of  crimes  against  human  society  not 
one  can  be  found  so  awful  in  all  its  consequences,  both  immediate 
and  remote,  as  a  Government  commits  when  it  deliberately  destroys 
the  money  of  its  own  citizens.  Wherever  in  all  the  regions  of  time 
such  measures  have  been  accomplished  the  horrors  of  history  have 
taken  place.  No  shrinkage  in  the  amount  of  money,  no  contraction 
of  the  currency  in  the  hands  of  the  people  was  ever  enforced  by  law 
to  any  considerable  extent,  except  amidst  broken  lives,  ruined  hopes, 
despair,  lost  honor,  and  all  the  vices  springing  from  the  lowest  depths 
of  poverty  and  human  misery.  The  worst  ingredients  of  war,  pest  Hence, 
and  famine  all  flow  from  the  act  of  a  government  violently  tearing 
from  the  hands  of  the  laboring  masses  the  money  they  so  much  need. 
Murder,  theft,  robbery,  prostitution,  forgery,  embezzlement,  and 
fraud  of  every  hue  and  mien  curse  the  land  that  is  deprived  of  a  full 
and  sufficient  circulating  medium  on  which  to  give  employment  to 
its  toiling  men  and  women.  The  social  statistics  of  mankind  will 
show  that  wherever  the  supply  of  money  has  been  scant  and  labor 
poorly  paid,  or  left  entirely  idle,  there  the  gallows-tree  has  borne 
most  frequently  its  horrid  burden;  there  the  jails  and  the  peniten¬ 
tiaries  and  all  the  haunts  of  infamy  have  been  most  crowded.  The 
well-clothed  and  wrell-fed  Pharisee  may  ostentatiously  thauk  God 
that  he  is  better  than  such  as  these,  but  he  is  not.  When  the  strong 
hand  of  the  Government  is  engaged  in  abolishing  money,  and  thus 
interposing  between  the  laboring-man  and  the  laboring-woman 


and  their  last  chance  for  bread  by  honest  work,  their  sins  for  self- 
preservation  are  less  odious  to  their  merciful  Father  than  the  prayers 
of  the  usurers  who  have  driven  them  to  ruin. 

It  is  said  in  highly  intelligent  quarters  that  at  this  hour  there  are 
three  millions  of  our  own  people  unemployed,  who  have  no  other 
dependence  for  food  and  shelter  than  the  labor  of  their  hands, 
and  one-half  of  whom  are  now  tramping  from  place  to  place  for 
crumbs  of  charity.  Pitiable  and  dangerous  spectacle !  It  never  hap¬ 
pened  before  in  this  land  of  bounteous  nature,  nor  would  it  now  but 
for  the  fact  that  in  these  later  days  a  class  has  arisen  in  our  midst 
which  is  benefited  by  the  scarcity  of  money,  and  the  consequent  de¬ 
struction  of  all  those  great  industries  which  afford  employment  to 
labor.  Nor  does  this  frightful  spectacle  appeal  alone  to  our  sympa¬ 
thy  with  human  misery,  deep  and  indescribable  as  that  must  be.  The 
loss  to  the  country  in  actual  wealth  arising  from  the  absolute  idleness 
of  three  million  persons  is  very  great.  It  has  been  estimated  that  at 
one  dollar  per  day  as  wages  it  would  amount  to  enough  in  two  years 
to  liquidate  our  public  debt.  The.  United  States  monetary  commis¬ 
sion  make  the  following  valuable  observations  in  their  recent  report : 

The  worst  effect,  however,  economically  considered,  of  falling  prices  is  not  upon 
existing  property,  nor  upon  debtors,  evil  as  it  is,  hut  upon  laborers,  whom  it  de¬ 
prives  of  employment  and  consigns  to  poverty,  and  upon  society,  which  it  deprives 
of  that  vast  sum  of  wealth  which  resides  potentially  in  the  vigorous  arms  of  the 
idle  workman.  A  shrinking  volume  of  money  transfers  existing  property  unjustly, 
and  causes  a  concentration  and  diminution  "of  wealth.  It  also  impairs  the  value 
of  existing  property  by  eliminating  from  it  that  important  element  of  value  con¬ 
ferred  upon  it  by  the  skill,  energy,  and  care  of  the  debtors  from  whom  it  is  wrested. 
But  it  does  not  destroy  any  existing  property,  while  it  does  absolutely  annihilate 
all  the  values  producible  by  the  labor  which  it  condemns  to  idleness.  The  esti¬ 
mate  is  not  an  extravagant  one  that  there  are  now  in  the  United  States  three  mill¬ 
ion  persons  willing  to  work,  but  who  are  idle  because  they  cannot  obtain  employ¬ 
ment.  This  vast  poverty-stricken  army  is  increasing  and  will  continue  to  increase 
as  long  as  falling  prices  shall  continue  to  separate  money  capital,  the  fund  out  of 
which  wages  are  paid,  from  labor,  and  to  discourage  its  investment  in  other  forms 
of  property. 

Labor,  co-operating  with  the  forces  of  nature,  is  the  source  of  all  wealth,  and 
to  reach  the  highest  degree  of  effectiveness  it  must  be  classified  through  the  aid 
of  capital  and  supported  by  capital  during  the  process  of  production  and  be 
measured  and  paid  in  money,  each  unit  of  which  is  a  sight-draft  on  all  other 
forms  of  property,  bearing  a  value  in  proportion  to  the  number  of  such  drafts. 
In  order  that  any  country  may  reach  the  maximum  of  material  prosperity  cer¬ 
tain  conditions  are  indispensable.  All  its  labor,  assisted  by  the  most  approved 
machinery  and  appliances,  must  be  employed,  and  the  fruits  of  industry  must  be 
justly  distributed.  These  conditions  are  only  possible  when  capital  is  absolutely 
protected  against  violence  and  free  from  illegitimate  legislative  interference,  and 
when  the  laborer  is  protected  in  his  natural  right  to  dispose  of  his  labor  in  such 
manner  as  he  may  prefer.  They  are  utterly  impossible  when  the  money  stock  is 
shrinking  and  the  money  value  of  property  and  services  is  declining.  Howsoever 
great  the  natural  resources  of  a  country  may  be,  however  genial  its  climate ,  fertile  its 
soil ,  ingenious ,  enterprising ,  and  industrious  its  inhabitants,  or  free  its  institutions, 
if  the  volume  of  money  is  shrinking  and  prices  are  falling,  its  merchants  will  be  over¬ 
whelmed  with  bankruptcy ,  its  industries  ivill  be  paralyzed,  and  destitution  and  dis¬ 
tress  will  prevail. 

The  instinct  of  self-interest  is  the  mainspring  of  industrial  and  commercial 
activity.  It  is  the  animating  motive  alike  of  the  capitalist  and  of  the  laborer. 
Without  it,  no  labor  would  be  performed,  nor  would  capital  have  an  existence.  If 
money  capital  is  withdrawn  from  productive  enterprises,  it  is  from  the  apprehen¬ 
sion  of  loss  and  from  the  same  instinct  of  thrift  through  which  it  was  acquired. 
It  is  natural  that  the  money  capitalist  should  exact  from  labor  all  he  can  in  ex¬ 
change  for  his  money,  and  that  the  laborer  should  exact  all  the  money  he  can  in  ex¬ 
change  for  his  labor.  What  is  known  as  the  conflict  between  capital  and  labor  is 
not  so  much  a  conflict  between  other  forms  of  capital  and  labor  as  it  is  between 
money  and  labor.  Indeed,  the  conflict  between  money  and  other  forms  of  capital 
is  as  distinctly  marked  and  quite  as  severe  as  the  conflict  between  money  and  labor, 
and  in  that  conflict  other  forms  of  capital  suffer  fully  as  much  as  labor,  the  only  dif¬ 
ference  being  that  they  are  better  able  to  endure  losses.  Other  forms  of  capital  must 


be  constantly  converted  into  money  in  order  to  pay  wages  and  to  meet  other  de¬ 
mands  incident  to  industrial  enterprises.  AVlien  the  stock  of  money  is  shrinking  and 
prices  are  falling,  this  conversion  can  only  be  made  at  rates  continually  growing 
more  unfavorable,  while  at  the  same  time  the  products  of  the  labor  for  whose  wages 
sacrifices  have  been  made  are  also  undergoing  a  shrinkage  of  money  value.  Thus 
loss  and  sacrifice  are  encountered  at  every  turn,  and  the  owners  of  other  capital 
than  money  shrink  from  the  friction  of  exchange,  withdraw  from  productive  enter¬ 
prises,  and  only  exchange  as  much  of  their  property  for  money  as  will  suffice  to 
meet  the  necessary  expenditures  of  living,  which  are  reduced  to  the  most  econom¬ 
ical  level,  as  it  is  principal  and  not  income  which  is  being  consumed.  Little  more 
labor  will  be  employed  under  these  circumstances  than  is  sufficient  to  support  the 
owners  of  capital  on  this  parsimonious  basis,  and  as  a  consequence  the  labor  mar¬ 
ket  will  be  overstocked,  and  the  competition  between  laborers  will  reduce  wages  to 
a  starvation  level.  But  during  this  period,  when  property  is  being  sacrificed  to 
meet  current  necessities,  and  laborers  are  being  remitted  to  idleness  and  destitu¬ 
tion,  money  fattens  on  the  general  disaster. 

When,  therefore,  on  the  14th  of  January,  1875,  this  Government, 
having  already  destroyed  silver  money,  determined  to  destroy  within 
the  next  four  years  its  outstanding  legal-tender  paper  currency  until 
there  should  be  no  more  of  it  left  than  could  he  redeemed  in  gold 
coin  alone  on  the  1st  day  of  January,  1879,  it  became  responsible  for 
all  the  appalling  consequences  that  have  followed.  An  attempt  to 
force  the  resumption  of  specie  payments  with  gold  and  silver  botli 
as  our  metallic  basis  would  be  a  cruel  failure  at  this  time ;  but  the 
proposition  to  contract,  reduce,  cancel,  and  burn  our  present  amount 
of  currency  until  it  harmonizes  with  the  meager  margin  of  gold 
which  we  can  command  has  stricken  the  arm  of  labor  with  paralysis, 
dried  up  the  fountains  of  business  prosperity,  and  placed  hollow-eyed 
want  in  more  than  a  million  hitherto  happy  homes.  The  demone¬ 
tization  of  silver  was  purposely  accomplished  before  the  policy  of 
specie  resumption  was  declared  in  order  to  make  money  as  scarce  as 
possible  in  reaching  by  forced  contraction  the  single  standard  of 
gold.  We  could  reach  the  double  standard  easier  than  the  single  one, 
but  the  purpose  of  the  money  power  was  the  diminution  of  money  in 
circulation,  and  it  better  accomplished  that  object  by  first  outlawing 
silver  and  then  seeking  the  specie  basis  composed  of  but  one  metal. 
It-  cannot  be  denied  that  great  progress  has  been  made  in  this  work 
of  destroying  moneys,  and  all  values,  except  the  value  of  money, 
which  is  made  greater  by  being  made  scarcer  and  harder  to  obtain. 

At  the  date  of  the  act  of  January,  1875,  our  volume  of  currency 
was  already  reduced  in  proportion  to  population  far  below  European 
nations,  where  labor  commands  barely  subsistence  wages.  We  had 
nearly  one-half  less  per  capita  than  Germany,  England,  or  France. 
Financial  distress  was  even  then  upon  us.  Business  wrecks  were 
afloat  on  every  hand.  We  had  the  warnings  of  the  nine  preceding 
years  during  which  the  money  of  the  country  had  been  diminished 
nearly  $400,000,000  by  contraction,  and  during  which  time  the  lia¬ 
bilities  for  commercial  failures  and  bankruptcies  had  arisen  from 
an  average  of  about  $11,000,000  per  annum  to  nearly  three  hun¬ 
dred  million.  A  panic  had  just  swept  over  the  country  with  sufficient 
havoc  and  ruin  to  extort  the  admission  from  General  Grant  in  his 
message  of  December,  1873,  that  our  volume  of  currency  was  too 
small  for  our  business,  even  at  its  dullest  stages.  We  had  less  than 
$735,000,000,  not  counting  fractional  currency,  and  yet  against  the 
supplications  of  every  active  business  and  industry  a  still  further 
reduction  wTas  dictated,  and  has  been  effected  to  the  extent  of  nearly 
one  hundred  million.  If,  however,  the  law  for  the  enforced  resump¬ 
tion  of  specie  payments  is  to  stand  unrepealed  on  our  statute-books, 
then  there  still  remains  a  work  of  destruction  to  be  done  in  this 


24 


country  far  more  extensive,  dangerous,  and  full  of  wretchedness’ 
than  we  have  yet  witnessed.  That  law  declares  that — 

On  and  after  the  1st  day  of  January,  A.  D.  1879,  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury 
shall  redeem  in  coin  the  United  States  legal-tender  notes  then  outstanding  on  their 
presentation  for  l'edemption  at  the  office  of  ihe  assistant  treasurer  of  the  United 
States  in  the  city  of  New  York,  in  sums  of  not  less  than  $50. 

The  term  coin  here  used  means  only  gold  now,  and  the  law,  in  order 
to  enable  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  to  carry  out  this  plan  for  re¬ 
tiring  the  greenback  money  from  circulation,  authorizes  him  to  sell 
interest-bearing  bonds  to  obtain  gold  and  to  use  such  surplus  reve¬ 
nues  as  he  may  have  on  hand. 

The  Government  has  undertaken  two  things:  first, the  shrinkage  of 
the  amount  of  currency,  and,  second,  the  possession  of  gold  in  such 
quantity  that  the  one  can  be  converted  into  the  other.  The  smaller, 
therefore,  the  quantity  of  gold  that  can  be  obtained  the  greater  must 
be  the  reduction  of  paper  money  in  order  to  rest  dollar  for  dollar  on 
such  a  narrow  metallic  basis.  It  becomes  important  in  this  view  to 
know  what  has  been  done  under  the  law  of  January,  1875,  in  ac¬ 
cumulating  gold  as  a  basis  for  specie  payments  a  year  hence.  Many 
efforts  have  been  made  to  ascertain  the  exact  amount  of  actual  gold 
which  this  Government  now  owns,  none  of  which  has  been  entirely 
successful,  for  the  reason  that  the  sum  is  so  small,  but  it  is  perfectly 
safe  to  state,  after  deducting  the  amount  due  as  interest  on  bonds, 
That  there  are  not  this  day  fifty  millions  of  gold  in  the  United  States 
Treasury  and  in  all  the  national  banks  besides.  If  resumption  is  to 
take  place  on  that  basis,  the  gigantic  task  of  this  poor  pittance  will 
be  to  stand  good  for  the  redemption  of  $350,007,308.50  of  legal-tender 
notes,  commonly  called  greenbacks,  and  $291,874,236  of  national-bank¬ 
note  circulation,  making  in  all  the  sum  of  $641,881,544.50.  It  is  very 
plain,  even  to  those  who  believe  that  $1  in  gold  is  sufficient  for  the  cir¬ 
culation  and  redemption  of  $3  in  paper,  that  our  present  condition 
of  $1  in  gold  to  about  fourteen  in  paper  must  be  radically  revolu¬ 
tionized  against  the  day  fixed  for  specie  resumption.  What  prob¬ 
ability  is  there  of  any  large  increase  of  gold  in  the  vaults  of  the 
Treasury  ?  Will  specie  resumption  be  reached  within  the  present 
year  by  leveling  up  the  amount  of  gold  in  our  possession  or  by  level¬ 
ing  down  the  amount  of  currency  in  circulation  ?  No  one  claims  that 
foreign  nations  will  supply  our  want  of  gold. 

On  the  contrary,  nearly  all  the  produce  of  our  mines  goes  to  them 
to  pay  interest  on  public  securities  held  abroad.  But  even  if  this 
Government  could  turn  the  entire  gold  yield  of  every  American  mine 
into  the  Treasury  between  this  and  the  1st  day  of  January,  1879,  the 
supply  would  fall  far  short  of  a  specie  basis  for  one-tenth  part  of 
our  present  circulation.  During  the  year  that  has  just  closed,  1877, 
the  gold  coinage  of  our  mints  reached  only  the  sum  of  $44,078,199. 
The  bulk  of  this  sum  went  abroad,  a  portion  of  it  is  hoarded  by 
private  parties,  and  a  small  fraction,  perhaps,  found  its  way  into  the 
coffers  of  the  Government.  An  examination  of  the  report  of  the 
Director  of  the  Mint  for  1877  shows  that  the  entire  coinage  of  gold 
in  the  United  States  from  the  establishment  of  the  Mint  in  1793  to 
the  present  time  amounts  to  but  $983,159,695.  This  is  the  slow  and 
comparatively  small  production  of  gold  money  in  the  long  space  of 
eighty-four  years,  nearly  the  whole  life-time  of  the  American  Repub¬ 
lic  ;  less  than  $1,000,000,000;  less  than  enough  to  pay  for  one  siugle 
crop  of  agricultural  products  in  the  western  States  of  Ohio,  Ken¬ 
tucky,  Indiana,  Illinois,  Michigan,  Wisconsin,  Missouri,  Minnesota, 
Iowa,  Kansas,  and  Nebraska  ;  and  less  than  one-half  enough  to  pay 


25 

the  national  debt  as  it  exists  to-day.  Is  there  no  lesson  of  wisdom 
in  these  figures  for  the  statesman  of  these  times?  They  are  the  ex¬ 
perience  of  almost  a  century.  Do  they  encourage  any  reasonable 
being  to  believe  that  gold  enough  can  be  obtained  by  this  Govern¬ 
ment  in  the  next  twelve  months  to  redeem  its  currency  and  to  ena¬ 
ble  its  citizens  to  do  business  on  a  specie  basis?  Is  there  anywhere 
in  America  or  in  the  whole  universe  a  new  fountain  of  gold,  pouring 
forth  increased  volumes,  from  which  our  parched  and  scanty  re¬ 
sources  may  be  replenished? 

The  very  reverse  is  the  fact.  Old  fountains  are  drying  up  ;  their 
streams  are  diminishing  ;  no  wizard’s  rod  can  smite  the  earth  and  in¬ 
dicate  where  new  supplies  will  break  forth.  But  the  requirements 
of  the  Government  for  gold  constitute  but  a  small  portion  of  the  de¬ 
mand.  The  American  people  at  this  time  are  enormously  in  debt ; 
more  than  any  other  people  beneath  the  sun.  Their  State  and  mu¬ 
nicipal  debts  of  all  kinds,  and  their  private  debts  to  each  other,  have 
been  variously  estimated  at  from  six  to  teu  thousand  million  dollars. 
Every  dollar  of  this  vast  indebtedness  will  call  for  gold  coin  after 
the  1st  day  of  January,  1879.  Where  are  the  people  to  obtain  suffi¬ 
cient  gold  with  which  to  pay  their  debts  and  transact  their  busi¬ 
ness  ?  The  question  is  one  that  may  well  terrify  every  man  who 
owes  his  neighbor  anything,  for  there  is  not  now,  and  never  has 
been  at  any  oue  time,  enough  gold  in  circulation  as  money  on  the 
face  of  the  wdiole  earth  to  meet  this  demand.  If,  therefore,  specie 
payments  are  in  reality  to  be  resumed  in  January,  1879,  the  Govern¬ 
ment  has  yet  to  destroy  at  least  two-thirds  of  its  present  paper  cir¬ 
culation,  and  the  people  on  this  reduced  basis,  and  under  the  gold 
standard  alone,  will  be  compelled  to  meet  their  debts  and  their 
taxes  which  have  undergone  no  diminution. 

Sir,  here' the  bad  faith  of  this  Government  toward  the  great  mass 
of  its  citizens  culminates.  To  a  people  in  debt  the  destruction  of 
their  money  is  the  virtual  increase  of  their  indebtedness  to  the  ex¬ 
tent  of  the  money  destroyed.  If  a  man  makes  a  contract  to  pay  one 
hundred  dollars  on  a  given  day,  and  has  just  that  sum  of  money  in 
his  possession  at  the  date  of  the  contract,  he  is  doing  business 
securely.  If,  however,  fifty  dollars  are  taken  from  him  by  force,  and 
he  is  left  to  meet  his  contract  on  one-half  the  amount  needed,  his 
bankruptcy  necessarily  follows.  The  American  people  were  supplied 
with  one  amount  of  currency  on  which  to  contract  debts,  both  jjublic 
and  private,  and  they  are  now  to  have  another,  and  far  smaller 
amount,  with  which  to  pay  them.  They  entered  into  all  their  exist¬ 
ing  obligations  with  comparatively  plenty  of  money  in  their  hands. 
By  the  laws  of  this  Government  now  they  are  first  to  be  deprived  of 
one-half  their  money,  and  then  required  to  pay  every  obligation  in 
full.  The  national  debt  was  contracted  on  the  basis  of  inflation,  and 
is  to  be  paid  on  the  narrowest  basis  of  the  most  merciless  contraction. 
A  thousand-dollar  bond  for  which  only  $600  in  gold  was  realized 
by  the  Government,  in  its  distress,  at  the  time  of  its  issue,  has 
now  to  be  taken  up  and  paid  for  with  over  a  thousand  dollars  in  gold 
by  the  tax-payers.  The  farmer  who  bought  land  with  deferred  pay¬ 
ments;  the  mechanic  who  purchased  a  house  and  lot  and  made  a 
mortgage  for  the  balance  of  the  purchase-money  ;  the  business  man 
who  uses  his  credit  as  a  part  of  his  capital,  have  all  found  the  weight 
of  their  obligations  largely  increased  by  being  deprived  of  the  means 
of  meeting  them.  They  must  be  met,  however,  and  property  itself, 
in  the  absence  of  money,  changes  hands  from  the  debtor  to  the  cred¬ 
itor  classes  in  payment  of  debts.  It  changes  hands,  too,  at  such 


20 


reduced  values  that  the  business  mau  is  sold  out  and  closed  up,  and 
homes  are  swept  away,  often  for  the  want  of  a  very  small  sum  of 
money. 

Since  the  act  demonetizing  silver,  supplemented  as  it  has  been  by 
the  act  for  a  forced  resumption  of  specie  payments,  the  property  of 
the  people  of  the  United  States  has  shrunk  not  less  than  35  percent, 
in  value.  What  could  be  sold  for  $100  five  years  ago  can  be  bought 
now  for  $65  on  an  average  all  over  the  country.  This  is  a  criminaf 
confiscation  of  property  amounting  to  not  less  in  value  than  $10,000,- 
000,000  when  the  estimate  is  applied  to  every  State  and  section  alike. 
In  this  vast  shrinkage  of  all  values,  arising  from  the  shrinkage  of 
money  iu  circulation,  is  to  be  found  the  immediate  cause  of  that  gen¬ 
eral  bankruptcy  and  ruin  which  now  fill  the  land  with  the  sound  of 
falling  business  houses,  commercial  failures,  broken  savings  banks, 
and  the  lamentations  of  the  poor  who  have  been  robbed  of  their  hard 
earnings  and  of  the  opportunity  to  earn  more.  Under  the  influence 
of  this  policy  nearly  forty  thousand  business  failures  have  taken 
place  in  this  country  since  February,  1873,  with  liabilities  amounting 
in  the  aggregate  to  over  $1,000,000,000.  The  heart  sickens  in  think¬ 
ing  for  a  moment  of  the  sorrows,  the  broken  hearts,  the  shattered 
hopes,  the  suicides  which  these  figures  represent.  If  the  policy  of 
this  Government  has  been  to  inflict  the  greatest  misery  on  the  great¬ 
est  number  its  success  has  been  complete.  It  is  in  vain  to  attribute 
such  wide-spread  disasters  to  other  causes.  We  sometimes  hear  them 
ascribed  to  what  is  vaguely  styled  overproduction.  I  would  gladly 
know  what  is  meant  by  this  oracular  term.  Overproduction  !  What 
is  it  that  we  overproduce  ?  Is  there  too  much  food,  clothing,  and 
other  necessities  of  life  ?  Has  the  soil  yielded  too  much  wheat,  com, 
hay,  cotton,  sugar,  rice  ?  The  producer  is  one  who  creates  wealth, 
and  overproduction  would  therefore  signify  too  great  au  amount  of 
wealth.  It  will  be  hard  to  convince  a  sane  mind  that  an  overflow  of 
wealth  is  the  cause  of  depression  and  gloom,  of  financial  calamities 
and  rapidly  increasing  poverty,  and  of  laborers  praying,  and  praying- 
in  vain,  for  the  privilege,  once  afforded  to  slaves,  of  working  for  the 
bare  means  of  subsistence.  The  mission  of  wealth  produced  by  toil 
from  the  bosom  of  the  earth  is  far  different  from  this.  Unless  de¬ 
prived  of  its  natural  functions  by  pernicious  laws  it  brings  abundant 
happiness  to  a  people  and  establishes  smiling  content  in  their  midst. 

But  the  cause  most  commonly  assigned  by  the  authors  of  our  finan¬ 
cial  policy  for  its  baleful  effects  on  the  business  and  labor  of  the 
country  is  that  the  currency  has  been  and  is  yet  in  an  inflated  condi¬ 
tion,  and  that  real  prosperity  can  only  be  attained  by  its  reduction  to 
the  gold  basis.  The  evils  of  inflation  have  been  painted  in  the  darkest 
colors  for  years  past,  and  on  all  occasions.  I  am  not  an  inflationist 
in  any  sense  that  would  disturb  the  true  interest  of  trade  and  com¬ 
merce,  nor  would  it  ever  be  necessary  to  discuss  the  question  at  all 
if  the  contractionist  had  only  been  willing  to  let  the  volume  of  our 
currency  remain  at  the  point  where  the  country  prospered  most  and 
the  people  were  happiest.  A  comparison  between  the  periods  when 
our  i>aper  circulation  was  greatest  and  the  years  of  contraction  which 
have  followed  is  crushing  to  the  advocates  of  the  latter  policy.  Dur¬ 
ing  the  whole  fouryears  of  1863, 1864, 1865,  and  1866,  when  the  volume 
of  our  currency  averaged  over  a  thousand  millions,  the  business  fail¬ 
ures  of  the  entire  country  reached  only  twenty-one  hundred  and 
sixty-seven  ;  less  in  number  than  occurred  in  any  three  months  of  the 
year  just  closed.  Is  this  an  argument  against  a  full  and  generous 
circulation  of  money  ?  During  the  period  which  is  now  stigmatized  ' 


as  one  of  inflation  the  windows  of  business  houses  were  not  dark¬ 
ened,  and  business  men  did  not  go  as  mourners  about  the  streets. 
The  laborer  did  not  go  home  without  bread  to  his  wife  and  children. 
Helpless  millions  did  not  cower  and  tremble  at  the  approach  of 
winter  for  the  lack  of  food  and  shelter.  The  public  peace  was  not 
broken  by  riots  in  resistance  to  starvation  wages.  The  courts  were 
not  principally  occupied  in  enforcing  collections,  foreclosing  mort¬ 
gages,  ordering  sheriff  sales,  or  in  punishing  the  destitute  and  the 
outcast.  These  are  some  things  which  did  not  take  place.  Others 
that  did  are  equally  striking.  Good  wages  and  good  prices  stim¬ 
ulated  every  laboring-man’s  muscle,  every  business  man’s  brain,  and 
every  power  of  machinery  into  the  highest  and  most  productive 
activity.  Hope  and  encouragement  were  in  every  heart.  New 
farms  wTere  bought  and  cultivated  ;  new  workshops  were  opened ; 
new  manufactories  were  established ;  new  towns  and  cities  were 
founded,  and  old  ones  expanded  and  improved  ;  new  railroads  were 
built,  giving  employment  to  millions  and  bringing  the  remotest  aud 
most  obscure  regions  into  immediate  contact  with  trade  and  civil¬ 
ization;  new  mines  of  iron,  coal,  and  silver  were  sunk  into  the  earth, 
wrhose  contents  in  return  assisted  in  the  glad  work  of  a  universal, 
individual,  and  national  prosperity.  Am  I  to  be  reminded  that  this 
well-known  condition  of  general  welfare  and  happiness  was  a  de¬ 
lusion,  that  it  wras  unreal  and  could  not  last?  Why  was  it  a  delu¬ 
sion?  Were  not  its  comforts  and  blessings  a  reality  to  the  American 
people?  But  wThy  did  it  not  last?  But  one  answer  can  be  given  : 
The  money  power  determined  it  should  not  last.  The  Garden  of 
Eden  before  the  fall  was  not  more  hateful  in  the  eyes  of  Satan  than 
was  this  picture  of  plenty  and  prosperity  to  those  whose  gains  and 
profits  depended  on  the  scarcity  of  money  in  the  hands  of  the  people 
and  consequent  hard  times.  They  began  their  work  of  spoliation  in 
1866,  and  they  have  made  the  downfall  complete.  They  have  haunted 
these  halls ;  they  have  thundered  at  these  doors ;  they  have  fortified 
themselves  in  the  high  places  of  this  Government,  and,  whether  by 
deceitful  persuasion,  artful  speech,  or  open  menace  and  assault,  they 
have  not  ceased  to  bring  blight  and  ruin  to  the  people.  The  very 
madness  of  avarice  has  impelled  them  from  blow  to  blow,  from  act¬ 
io  act.  The  picture  of  general  welfare  that  I  have  drawn,  indeed, 
did  not  last.  It  has  been  defaced,  torn,  stamped  under  foot  by  the 
repeated  acts  of  legislation  inspired  by  remorseless  greed.  The  peo¬ 
ple  asked  for  no  such  change.  They  never  sent  petitions  here  ask¬ 
ing  for  any  of  the  enactments  of  the  last  twelve  years.  They  would 
have  been  glad  to  be  let  alone  and  to  allow  the  natural  laws  of  trade 
and  business  to  work  out  a  safe  solution  of  every  financial  problem. 
Loud  complaint  is  now  made  by  thoughtless  or  designing  persons 
that  the  question  of  our  finances  is  under  agitation.  Every  act  of 
legislation  thus  far  has  been  dictated  by  invested  capital,  and  not  one 
by  the  people.  Every  agitation  of  the  question  in  Congress,  until 
the  present,  has  been  made  in  the  same  interest  and  to  gain  addi¬ 
tional  advantages. 

The  people  thus  far  have  borne  their  wrongs  in  the  forbearing  hope 
that  they  would  cease,  and  if  now  they  rise  at  last  and  see  to  it  that 
their  rights  are  better  respected,  it  is  because  the  full  measure  of 
their  patience  is  exhausted.  When  their  prostrate  and  suffering  con¬ 
dition,  however,  is  forced  on  the  unwilling  recognition  of  the  money 
power,  we  are  often  met  with  the  impatient  argument  that  it  is  not 
for  the  Government  to  make  money  for  the  people.  I  might  content 
myself  with  answering  that  it  is  certainlvnot  for  the  Government  to 


28 


destroy  money  for  the  people.  Those  who  deny  the  right  of  the  Gov¬ 
ernment  to  regulate  the  amount  of  currency  in  circulation  overlook 
the  fact  that  they  have  been  dictating  that  very  policy  to  be  pur¬ 
sued  for  themselves  ;  only  that  they  have  always  caused  it  to  be  reg¬ 
ulated  downward  instead  of  upward. 

But  what  is  the  duty  of  the  Government  in  this  regard  ?  Is  it  true 
that  the  people  are  not  dependent  on  the  policy  of  their  Government 
for  money  on  which  to  do  business  ?  Is  it  true,  as  often  asserted,  that 
in  some  way  or  other  those  who  are  willing  to  work,  or  have  some¬ 
thing  to  sell,  can  always  obtain  money  regardless  of  all  financial 
legislation  ?  No  greater  fallacy  than  this  was  ever  put  forward  in 
defense  of  wrong  and  injustice.  Money  is  the  creature  of  government 
both  as  to  quality  and  quantity.  It  exists  merely  by  the  assertion  of 
law,  and  in  no  other  way.  Article  1,  section  8,  of  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States  provides  that  “The  Congress  shall  have  power 
*  *  *  to  coin  money,  regulate  the  value  thereof,  and  of  foreign 

coin,  and  fix  the  standard  of  weights  and  measures,”  and  section  10  of 
the  same  article  denies  all  such  powers  to  the  States,  thus  making 
Congress  the  exclusive  creator  of  money  for  the  American  people. 
Without  the  action  of  Congress  not  one  dollar  can  exist  in  the  United 
States.  If  the  article  called  money,  whether  of  gold,  silver,  or  paper, 
is  necessary  at  all  in  the  transactions  of  life,  here  alone  is  the  fountain 
from  which  it  emanates.  How,  then,  shall  this  high  power  be  exer¬ 
cised  ?  Shall  only  enough  lawful  money  be  created,  in  proportion  to 
the  labor  and  other  commodities  which  it  is  designed  to  pay  for,  to 
give  ten  cents  a  day  to  the  laborer,  and  $10  for  a  horse ;  or  shall  it  be 
furnished  in  sufficient  amount  to  afford  a  just  equivalent  for  labor  aud 
for  every  other  thing  of  value?  On  the  answer  to  this  question  has 
depended  the  prosperity  or  the  adversity  of  the  American  people  in 
all  the  past;  on  it  their  present  deplorable  condition  can  alone  be 
explaiued,  and  their  future  fate  foretold.  A  circulating  medium 
being  a  recognized  necessity  of  civilized  nations,  and  its  existence 
depending  solely  on  national  authority,  that  government  which,  for 
any  reason,  fails  to  make  a  supply  adequate  to  the  business  prosperity 
of  its  citizens,  violates  that  fundamental  compact  of  duty  which  must 
prevail  in  every  free  political  commonwealth. 

Not  only,  however,  has  this  Government  failed  in  this  great  duty, 
but  the  manner  it  has  adopted  to  furnish  the  people  with  their  lim¬ 
ited  and  insufficient  supply  of  currency  was  conceived  and  perfected 
by  the  owners  of  retired  inactive  capital.  The  system  of  national 
banking  now  in  use  is  the  most  elaborate  and  complete  scheme  for 
making  the  people  pay  tribute  to  wealth,  in  order  to  obtain  a  circu¬ 
lating  medium,  ever  known  in  the  financial  history  of  the  world. 
There  is  not  a  dollar  to-day  in  the  hands  of  the  people  on  which  they 
have  not  paid  a  tax  for  the  privilege  of  having  it  put  in  circulation 
by  the  Government.  The  national  bank  is  the  middle-man  between 
the  Government  and  the  people,  and  is  enormously  paid  for  doing 
what  the  Government  ought  directly  to  do  itself.  According  to  the 
report  of  the  Comptroller  of  the  Currency  there  were  two  thousand 
and  eighty  national  banks  October  1, 1877,  and  they  owned  in  even 
numbers  $336,000,000  of  Government  bonds  as  the  basis  of  a  bank¬ 
note  circulation  of  $291,000,000.  The  interest  paid  by  the  people  on 
the  bonds  thus  used  to  secure  a  currency  on  which  to  transact  their 
business  amounts  to  not  leas  than  $16,000,000  per  annum.  This  is  the 
tax  paid  for  the  bank-note  circulation.  The  bondholder  has  been 
made  the  banker  of  the  country,  and  he  is  banking  on  the  interest- 
bearing  debt  of  the  people.  For  every  $100  of  currency  they  pay  him 


nearly  $6  interest  on  the  bonds  whicli  secure  that  hundred.  His  ad¬ 
vantages,  however,  only  begin  with  this  bonus  of  sixteen  millions. 

The  report  of  the  Comptroller  shows  that,  October  1,  1877,  the  na¬ 
tional  banks  had  loans  outstanding  to  the  amount  of  eight  hundred 
and  ninety-one  millions.  No  one  will  pretend  that  these  loans  are 
made  on  an  average  interest  of  less  than  10  per  cent.  This  makes  an 
interest  account  of  eighty-nine  millions  per  annum,  and  this  is  an 
under  rather  than  an  over  estimate.  Of  other  bonds,  stocks,  debts, 
real  estate,  specie,  currency,  clearing-house  exchanges,  United  States 
certificates  of  deposit,  and  all  other  resources,  the  property  of  the 
national  banks,  at  the  above  date,  amounted  to  something  over  five 
hundred  and  fourteen  millions,  which,  at  the  low  rate  of  5  per  cent., 
makes  au  additional  interest  income  of  twenty -five  millions.  The 
following  statement  will  therefore  correctly  represent  the  facts: 


October  1, 1877 : 

National  banks .  2,  080 

Resources . . .  $1, 741,  000.  000 

Interest  on  resources  paid  by  the  people  per  annum .  130,  000,  000 


In  return  for  the  establishment  of  this  stupendous  money  power  it 
simply  acts  as  an  agent  in  transmitting  the  currency  of  the  United 
States  from  the  Treasury  to  the  people.  Will  any  one  pretend  that 
a  cheaper  and  more  equitable  mode  of  supplying  the  country  with  a 
circulating  medium  cannot  be  framed  by  our  legislative  wisdom  ? 
In  fact  can  any  one  for  a  moment  defend  such  a  system  of  monopoly 
and  oppression  ?  He  who  desires  its  permanence  desires  also  the  per¬ 
manence  of  the  national  bonded  debt.  The  two  are  inseparable.  One 
rests  upon  the  other.  If  the  national  banks  are  a  blessing  then  our 
public  debt  is  a  blessing,  for  the  debt  supports  the  banks.  This  idea 
is  embraced  in  the  act  of  January,  1875.  Provision  is  made  in  the 
third  section  of  that  act  for  an  increased  number  of  “  banking  asso¬ 
ciations”  to  be  based  on  au  increaserl  number  of  interest-bearing 
bonds  sold  for  that  purpose.  They  are  armed  too  by  this  section  with 
hostile  powers  against  the  legal-lender  greenback.  With  the  aid  of 
the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  they  are  authorized  to  exterminate 
this  favorite  money  of  the  people.  For  every  $100  issued  after  the 
date  of  the  act  of  January,  1875,  by  the  national  banks  then  in  exist¬ 
ence  or  organized  afterward  $80  in  legal-tender  notes  are  to  be  with¬ 
drawn  from  circulation  and  destroyed  until  that  currency  is  contracted 
to  the  limit  of  $300,000,000.  The  purpose  of  this  legislation  is  to  make¬ 
file  banks  completely  master  of  the  financial  situation  and  to  subor¬ 
dinate  all  the  wants  and  interests  of  the  American  people  to  their 
will  and  pleasure.  And  in  order  to  facilitate  this  purpose  the  green¬ 
back  dollar  has  been  denounced  with  e  very  epithet  of  contempt  and 
derision  kuown  to  the  English  language.  I  will  not  pause  now  to 
defend  this  great  money  iu  its  contest  with  those  who  are  bent  on  its 
destruction.  Its  reputation  in  peace  and  in  war  is  known  to  all. 
The  soldiers  and  the  sailors  knew  it  in  the  great  hour  of  peril;  their 
widows,  their  orphans,  and  their  maimed  and  crippled  comrades  have 
known  it  ever  since.  The  people  of  every  class  and  of  every  party, 
engaged  in  business  and  labor,  know  that,  in  spite  of  all  assaults,  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  the  Government  dishonors  it  byrefusing  to  take 
it  for  Government  dues,  and  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  there  is  not  gold 
enough  in  the  Treasury  to  redeem  it  at  ten  cents  on  the  dollar,  yet 
to-day  it  ranks  but  3  per  cent,  below  gold  in  the  money  markets  that 
are  most  hostile  to  its  existence.  All  these  things  are  known  and 
treasured  up,  and  I  do  not  dwell  upon  them  now. 

Sir,  thus  far  1  have  spoken  in  pointing  out  what  I  conceive  to  be 


the  vicious  legislation  of  this  country  on  the  great  and  paramount 
question  of  its  finances.  There  are  two  opposing  ideas  on  this  sub¬ 
ject  now  thoroughly  aroused  into  vigilance  and  activity.  On  the 
one  hand  is  the  vast  money-power  in  all  its  various  developments  of 
bonds,  banks,  and  loaning  associations,  and  on  the  other  are  the  great 
industries,  the  active  business,  and  the  laboring  people.  The  issue 
has  been  years  in  making  up,  but  it  is  now  joined.  Nobody  need  be 
deceived.  All  the  wide-spread  influences  of  capital  are  organized 
and  combined.  The  holders  of  public  securities  in  America  and  in 
Europe  work  together.  They  think  and  act  in  concert. 

The  national  banks  of  the  United  States  have  a  solid  organization 
to  protect  what  they  have  and  to  get  as  much  more  as  possible. 
They  are  asking  now  to  be  relieved  from  paying  taxes  on  their  circu¬ 
lation  and  deposits,  in  order  that  they  may  enjoy  their  enormons 
profits  free  from  all  burdens  for  the  support  of  the  Government.  As¬ 
sociations  of  capitalists,  engaged  in  obtaining  mortgages  at  12 
per  cent,  interest  on  western  farms,  on  account  of  the  scarcity  of 
money  in  that  section,  are  not  only  striving  to  make  all  such  mort¬ 
gages  payable  in  gold  a  year  hence,  but  they  are  threatening  those 
in  pecuniary  distress  that  they  shall  have  no  further  favors  at  the 
same  rates  unless  they  agree  in  advance  to  pay  gold  in  return  for 
greenback  loans.  The  power  of  money  in  the  midst  of  times  like 
these  is  very  great,  but  I  am  much  deceived  in  the  people  if  they 
have  not  turned  at  last  in  defiance  and  bold  warning  upon  their  op¬ 
pressors.  They  are  not  in  favor  of  repudiating  a  single  dollar  of 
their  public  or  private  debts.  They  intend  to  pay  everything  they 
owe,  but  they  intend  to  submit  to  no  more  changes  of  contracts, 
violations  of  obligations,  and  breaches  of  public  faith,  in  order  to  in¬ 
crease  their  indebtedness  or  to  take  away  their  means  to  pay  it. 
They  demand,  too,  that  certain  specific  wrongs  shall  be  redressed. 

First,  those  for  whom  1  speak  demand  the  restoration  of  the  silver 
dollar  exactly  as  it  stood  before  it  was  touched  by  the  act  of  Feb¬ 
ruary,  1873.  They  desire  that  it  shall  have  unlimited  coinage,  not 
fearing  that  it  will  become  too  plenty  for  their  wants ;  and  that  it 
be  made  a  full  legal  tender,  believing  that  it  is  as  good  now  with 
which  to  pay  all  debts,  public  and  private,  as  it  was  during  eighty- 
one  years  of  American  history. 

Second,  they  demand  the  repeal,  unconditionally,  of  the  act  of  Jan¬ 
uary  14, 1875,  compelling  a  resumption  of  specie  x>ayments  in  January, 
1879,  holding  that  the  question  of  a  return  to  a  specie  basis  for  our 
currency  should  be  controlled  entirely  by  the  business  interests  of 
the  country.  They  do  not  believe  that  the  country  should  be  dragged 
through  the  depths  of  ruin,  wretchedness,  and  degradation  in  order  to 
reach  a  gold  standard  for  the  benefit  alone  of  the  income  classes. 

Third,  they  demand  that  the  national-banking  system  be  removed 
and  a  circulating  medium  provided  by  the  Government  for  the  peo- 
ple,  without  taxing  them  for  the  privilege  of  obtaining  it.  And  they 
ask  that  the  amount  thus  placed  in  circulation  shall  bear  a  reason¬ 
able  and  judicious  proportion  to  the  business  transactions  and  the 
population  of  the  United  States. 

Fourth,  they  demand  that  the  currency  circulated  on  the  authority 
of  the  Government  shall  be  made  a  legal  tender  in  payment  of  all 
debts,  public  and  private,  including  all  dues  to  the  Government,  well 
knowing  that  it  will  then  be  at  par  with  gold,  or  more  likely  at  a 
X)remium  over  it. 

And  fifth,  they  demand  that  hereafter  the  financial  policy  of  the 
country  be  framed  permanently  in  their  interest ;  that  they  shall  not 


31 


be  discriminated  against  in  future  legislation  as  in  the  past,  and  that 
their  prosperity,  and  not  the  mere  growth  of  incomes  to  retired  capi¬ 
talists,  shall  be  the  primary  duty  of  the  Government. 

In  my  judgment,  these  demands  are  just  and  moderate.  I  implore 
Senators  not  to  suppose  that  they  can  be  disregarded  with  safety.  If 
they  are  rejected  now  they  will  be  renewed  hereafter  with  still  greater 
determination  and  perhaps  with  others  added.  I  plead  for  the  finan¬ 
cial  credit  of  the  Government.  It  rests  on  the  popular  will  alone, 
and  that  will  can  no  longer  be  defied  or  menaced  with  impunity. 
The  people  are  sovereign,  and  they  can  bind  and  they  can  loosen. 
If  the  money  power  is  advised  with  wisdom  it  will  stop  and  retrace 
its  steps.  It  confronts  a  power  now  mightier  than  itself  :  a  free  peo¬ 
ple  at  the  ballot-box,  inflamed  by  a  sense  of  injustice  and  oppression. 
If,  however,  it  is  joined  to  its  golden  idol ;  if  its  heart  is  hardened 
and  its  neck  stiffened  by  its  vast  possessions  ;  if  the  burning  lust  of 
avarice  has  made  it  deaf  to  the  voice  of  reason  and  blind  to  all  hu¬ 
man  experience,  it  will  push  on  in  its  career,  until  it  works  its 
own  destruction  ;  for,  sooner  or  later,  the  people,  irrespective  of  party 
names,  will  unite  in  their  own  defense  and  establish  justice.  They 
have  been  slow  to  believe  that  there  was  a  deliberate  purpose  to 
degrade  and  impoverish  the  great  producing  classes,  but  they  are 
being  rapidly  educated  now.  The  condition  of  the  country  is  a 
teacher  whose  awful  lesson  is  engraven  on  all  their  hearts.  They 
have  also  recently  read  the  proclamations  of  the  great  organs  of  the 
money  power,  removing  all  disguise  as  to  the  meaning  of  our  finan¬ 
cial  legislation  and  the  misery  it  has  created.  In  the  columns  of  one 
they  have  read  that — 

The  American  laborer  must  make  up  his  mind  henceforth  not  to  be  so  much 
better  off  than  the  European  laborer.  Men  must  be  content  to  work  for  low 
wages.  *  *  *  In  this  way  the  workingman  will  be  nearer  to  that  station  in 
life  to  which  it  has  pleased  God  to  call  him. 

In  the  columns  of  another  organ  of  consolidated  capital  they  have 
read  the  following  revolting  sentiments  : 

There  seems  to  be  but  one  remedy.  It  is  a  change  of  the  ownership  of  the  soil, 
and  the  creation  of  a  class  of  land  owners  on  the  one  hand  and  of  tenant-farmers 
on  the  other  ;  something  similar  in  both  cases  to  what  has  long  existed  and  now 
exists  in  the  older  countries  of  Europe. 

And  in  every  form  in  which  the  English  language  can  be  used  the 
American  people,  and  especially  the  people  of  the  West,  have  been 
notified,  not  that  their  consent  will  be  asked,  but  that  they  will  be 
compelled  to  submit  to  the  legislation  which  results  in  this  British 
system  of  baronial  landed  estates,  a  dependent  tenantry  and  pauper 
wages  for  the  workingman.  Sir,  I  have  no  word  of  menace  to  utter 
on  this  floor,  but,  in  behalf  of  every  laborer  and  every  owner  of  the 
soil  whom  I  represent,  I  warn  all  such  as  value  their  investments 
that  when  these  doctrines  of  despotism  are  sought  to  be  enforced 
this  fair  land  will  again  be  convulsed  in  agony  and  the  fires  of 
liberty  will  blaze  forth  again,  as  they  did  a  hundred  years  ago,  in 
defense  of  the  natural  rights  of  man.  May  the  wisdom  of  our  fathers 
and  the  benignity  of  our  God  avert  such  an  issue  ;  but  if  it  shall 
come,  if  infatuation  has  seized  our  councils,  the  result  will  only  add 
one  more  instance  to  the  long  catalogue  of  human  crime  and  folly, 
where  avarice,  like  ambition,  overleaps  itself  and  in  its  unholy  at¬ 
tempt  to  rob  others  of  their  possessions  loses  its  own. 


✓ 


